[-empyre-] ending Week 1: Boredom: Labor, Use and Time

[Renate Terese Ferro]

Many thanks to John Stadler and Ben Bogart for being out guests for Week 1
on -empyre.  I must say that I long for some boredom as our summer
approaches in the western hemisphere and to have the possibilities that
boredom allows. Opening up some empty space for rest or mind wandering as
Ben has written about this past week seems like a reprieve to the
incessant workload of these past months.
 

The topic of Boredom came to me in the last weeks of what has been the
most incredibly busy academic calendar year I can remember.  New
initiatives
by administrators to cut unnecessary budget lines from an objective, cost
analysis perspective has impacted the humanities and arts so gravely as it
has
been indicative of many other institutional agencies.  Our higher than
normal space and equipment needs in the arts and our high faculty to
student ratio in both the arts and humanities has prompted curriculum
re-organization, cuts in course offerings, and further cuts in staff,
operating
expenses, student services, and in so many other areas.  Those of us
dedicated to arts and humanities plod onward realizing that he quality of
the education that we are so Dedicated to is being compromised.  Also
tangentially these changes that affect our own quality of life including
the productivity of our own writing and creating.

 
John and Ben¹s posts succinctly summarized some interesting cruxes if the
topic which have presented themselves more in questions than answers: Is
boredom is located within or outside of the self?
Is boredom culturally contingent and possibly not legible as boredom as
shifts in meaning occur?
What is the relation between boredom and rest?
Does boredom always involve a task that is momentarily paused, or a lack
of task?
What is the role of desensitization here?
Is boredom an awareness of mind wandering?
How does entertainment or other factors of leisure impact our notions of
boredom?
 
We have three weeks to go in this discussion so I pose these questions
again in hopes that it might inspire not only our future guests in
subsequent weeks but alsoposts from our wide group of international
subscribers who may want to comment on our conversation on Boredom.
 

Best of all of you, Renate


Visiting Assistant Professor of Art,Cornell University
Department of Art, Tjaden Hall Office:  306
Ithaca, NY  14853
Email:   <rferro at cornell.edu <mailto:rtf9 at cornell.edu>>
URL:  http://www.renateferro.net <http://www.renateferro.net/>
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