Journal of Boredom Studies

No. 3 (2025)
Articles

Theses on Self-Awareness in the History of Boredom Studies

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  • Julian Hason Haladyn
Julian Hason Haladyn
OCAD University, Canada

Published 2025-11-12

Keywords

  • Boredom,
  • Self-Awareness,
  • History,
  • Horror Loci

How to Cite

Haladyn, J. H. (2025). Theses on Self-Awareness in the History of Boredom Studies. Journal of Boredom Studies, (3). Retrieved from https://www.boredomsociety.com/jbs/index.php/journal/article/view/50

Copyright (c) 2025 Julian Hason Haladyn

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

“Part of establishing the cultural and critical field of boredom studies is,” Michael E. Gardiner and I write in the introduction to the Boredom Studies Reader, addressing: “what is boredom? Not as a means of limiting the possibilities of this emerging discourse, but rather to note the generally accepted personal and social boundaries of the experience of being bored.” Building off this question, the current paper consists of a series of theses that consider the history of boredom as a field of study in the contemporary day through several interrelated ideas about the development of a modern self. Drawing upon numerous treatments of boredom from different disciplinary perspectives, including literature, psychology, art, and philosophy, I argue that in order to understand the history of modern boredom and its developments up to the current day it is necessary to recognize that behind the act of being bored is an imperative towards self-awareness.

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