ENGLISH

A Philosophy of Boredom

By Lars Svendsen

Book information

Publisher
Reaktion Books
Year
2008
ISBN
1861892179, 9781861892171
LCC
BF575.B67 S84 2005
Open Library ID
OL17626184M
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
531 kB (543780 bytes)
Pages
178\178
Scanned
no
Time added
2011-06-04 13:46:07

Description

It has been described as a "tame longing without any particular object" by Schopenhauer, "a bestial and indefinable affliction" by Dostoevsky, and "time's invasion of your world system" by Joseph Brodsky, but still very few of us today can explain precisely what boredom is. A Philosophy of Boredom investigates one of the central preoccupations of our age as it probes the nature of boredom, how it originated, how and why it afflicts us, and why we cannot seem to overcome it by any act of will.Lars Svendsen brings together observations from philosophy, literature, psychology, theology, and popular culture, examining boredom's pre-Romantic manifestations in medieval torpor, philosophical musings on boredom from Pascal to Nietzsche, and modern explorations into alienation and transgression by twentieth-century artists from Beckett to Warhol. A witty and entertaining account of our dullest moments and most maddening days, A Philosophy of Boredom will appeal to anyone curious to know what lies beneath the overwhelming inertia of inactivity. (20050201)

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