Abstract
This chapter consists of an introduction by the expert in Boredom Studies Professor of Classics Peter Toohey (Department of Classics and Religion at the University of Calgary, Canada); the author of the book Boredom: A lively history, and an expert in tracing the history of this emotion from ancient times, as we can appreciate in papers such as “Some ancient notions of boredom” and “Acedia in late classical antiquity.” Considered a leading figure in the field of boredom and the ideal researcher to explain what is happening with boredom right now, his opening goes throughout the different approaches to boredom the authors will introduce henceforth. Professor Toohey’s contribution is a reflection on the state of affairs of the study, the understanding, and the research on boredom nowadays, just at this point before the end of the second decade of the twenty-first century.
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Notes
- 1.
Pamela Paul’s article has had a lot of readers. It was translated into Danish, for example, and published in Copenhagen’s Politiken one week after its appearance in the NYT.
- 2.
You might want to compare Mary Mann, Yawn: Adventures in boredom (2017). The psychologist and long-time boredom scholar, Sandi Mann also emphasizes the creative upside of boredom in The science of boredom: The upside (and downside) of downtime (2017). Moreover, Eva Hoffman offers a chapter on “Creative Play” in How to be Bored (2016).
- 3.
“Residents in part of the outback [in New South Wales] have been ordered to limit their showers to three minutes a day and banned from using a washing machine more than twice a week amid the worst drought since 1900,” reports Bernard Lagan in The Times (2019). Little chance of creative inspiration there.
- 4.
- 5.
The most stimulating of the many contributions on this topic, in my opinion, is Susan Maushart The winter of our disconnect (2011).
- 6.
She appears as well in Barraud’s La séance de painture (1933) and Les songes creux (1933).
- 7.
There is another version of this scene, but without a Louise, hence without boredom, by Francois Bonvin, La tailleuse de soupe (c. 1886).
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Toohey, P. (2019). Is It a Good Thing to Be Bored?. In: Ros Velasco, J. (eds) Boredom Is in Your Mind. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26395-9_1
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