Boredom Studies Reader: Frameworks and Perspectives

Boredom Studies is an increasingly rich and vital area of contemporary research that examines the experience of boredom as an importan – even quintessential – condition of modern life. This anthology of newly commissioned essays focuses on the historical and theoretical potential of this modern condition, connecting boredom studies with parallel discourses such as affect theory and highlighting possible avenues of future research. Spanning sociology, history, art, philosophy and cultural studies, the book considers boredom as a mass response to the atrophy of experience characteristic of a highly mechanised and urbanised social life.

Michael E. Gardiner is Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Western Ontario, Canada, where he is also a core faculty member of the Centre for the Study of Theory and Criticism. He teaches on social theory, everyday life and the sociology of utopia.

Julian Jason Haladyn is an art historian and professor at OCAD University. He is the author of Boredom and Art: Passions of the Will to Boredom (Zero Books, 2014) and Marcel Duchamp: Étant donnés (Afterall, 2010), as well as numerous journal articles and book chapters on art and critical theory.