Bored yet?
In our high-speed world where stuff happens in ever shortening intervals, boredom is something we hardly ever seem to experience, but which always lurks as a menacing shadow in the background of our experience. Isn’t this world, which aims to fill every last bit of our lives, not ultimately empty?
This course explores human subjectivity and society through the lense of the affect of boredom. It approaches its topic with sources from Phenomenology, Hermeneutics, Sociology and Intercultural Philosophy.
After a brief history of the affect of boredom and its meaning (primarily in Western societies), the course dives deeper into what boredom actually is. As an experience of negativity and a multi-faceted phenomenon, it is notoriously hard to define. Here, the intimate link of temporality of human existence and boredom does provide a point of departure. Through boredom, temporality is explored, through temporality, boredom is scrutinized.
In the following sessions, boredom serves as a platform from which to scrutinize different aspects of our social existence: First, the course takes a look at the workings of power and the socio-economic mediation of human life. Data driven capitalism is build on the premise of commodifying experience itself, aiming to fill the lives of subjects by measuring and directing human behaviour. In this highly pre-curated existence of digitally mediated worlds, boredom expresses a weariness and a satiety, and may thus initiate a critical inquiry into the conditions of late modern experience.
Second, it looks at how notions of „interesting” and “boring” structure social life and explores links between boredom and loneliness. In a third step, the incarnate dimension of existence is explored. How is it that perception loses its vivacity, its sharpness and colour, in deep boredom?
The last sessions of the course are dedicated to exploring boredom as a means of deepening human existence. Here, the course looks at approaches formulated by Heidegger, Nietzsche and philosophers of the Kyoto-School.
Poslední úprava: Vinterová Lenka, Mgr. (08.01.2026)
Bored yet?
In our high-speed world where stuff happens in ever shortening intervals, boredom is something we hardly ever seem to experience, but which always lurks as a menacing shadow in the background of our experience. Isn’t this world, which aims to fill every last bit of our lives, not ultimately empty?
This course explores human subjectivity and society through the lense of the affect of boredom. It approaches its topic with sources from Phenomenology, Hermeneutics, Sociology and Intercultural Philosophy.
After a brief history of the affect of boredom and its meaning (primarily in Western societies), the course dives deeper into what boredom actually is. As an experience of negativity and a multi-faceted phenomenon, it is notoriously hard to define. Here, the intimate link of temporality of human existence and boredom does provide a point of departure. Through boredom, temporality is explored, through temporality, boredom is scrutinized.
In the following sessions, boredom serves as a platform from which to scrutinize different aspects of our social existence: First, the course takes a look at the workings of power and the socio-economic mediation of human life. Data driven capitalism is build on the premise of commodifying experience itself, aiming to fill the lives of subjects by measuring and directing human behaviour. In this highly pre-curated existence of digitally mediated worlds, boredom expresses a weariness and a satiety, and may thus initiate a critical inquiry into the conditions of late modern experience.
Second, it looks at how notions of „interesting” and “boring” structure social life and explores links between boredom and loneliness. In a third step, the incarnate dimension of existence is explored. How is it that perception loses its vivacity, its sharpness and colour, in deep boredom?
The last sessions of the course are dedicated to exploring boredom as a means of deepening human existence. Here, the course looks at approaches formulated by Heidegger, Nietzsche and philosophers of the Kyoto-School.
Poslední úprava: Vinterová Lenka, Mgr. (08.01.2026)
Podmínky zakončení předmětu - angličtina
Attendance 80 per cent
Assignments as requested by the teacher
Final paper - 10 pages
Poslední úprava: Vinterová Lenka, Mgr. (19.12.2023)
