<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML dir=ltr><HEAD>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<META name=GENERATOR content="MSHTML 8.00.6001.18904"></HEAD>
<BODY>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT><BR> </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px" dir=ltr>
<DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center" class=MsoNormal align=center><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 11pt"></SPAN> </P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center" class=MsoNormal align=center><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Century Gothic'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><IMG
src="clip_image002.jpg" width=553 height=195></SPAN></SPAN></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center" class=MsoNormal align=center><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><SPAN
class=966332810-06042010><STRONG>Seminar Series
2010</STRONG></SPAN></SPAN></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center" class=MsoNormal align=center><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><SPAN
class=966332810-06042010><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; COLOR: rgb(31,73,125); FONT-SIZE: 11pt"
lang=EN-US><FONT color=#000000>Michael E. Gardiner
</FONT></SPAN></SPAN></SPAN></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center" class=MsoNormal align=center><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><SPAN
class=966332810-06042010><STRONG>Friday, 1-2pm <SPAN
class=329002108-09042010><FONT size=2
face=Arial>CG053 </FONT></SPAN></STRONG></SPAN></SPAN></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center" class=MsoNormal align=center><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><STRONG>“The
‘Trojan Horse’ of Boredom: Henri Lefebvre and Walter
Benjamin”</STRONG></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 11pt"></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Although very
different in temperament, writing style and personality, the French thinker
Henri Lefebvre (1901-1991) and German Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) developed a
remarkably similar (and eminently dialectical) account of modernity, combining
rigorous critique, a rejection of backwards-looking nostalgia, Left pessimism,
or transcendental appeals of any kind, and the search for utopian
potentialities in the hidden folds and recesses of everyday life. This talk
will focus on a particular phenomenon of considerable interest to both
thinkers, one that is arguably intrinsic to modernity: that of <I>boredom</I>,
a peculiar mode of temporal experience through which we can grasp a much wider
spectrum of contemporary anxieties, socio-cultural shifts, and subjective
crises. Curiously, although each refer to it fairly often, neither analyzed
the concept in a systematic fashion, and they used the term “boredom” in
loose, elliptical and even apparently contradictory ways. Yet, such a lack of
clarity reveals not only a certain shared ambivalence about this phenomenon;
it can highlight a subtle pattern of differentiation between <I>particular
modalities</I> of boredom that, if carefully attended to, can be highly
illuminating. Although Benjamin’s reflections on boredom have received a fair
amount of attention to date, critical commentary on Lefebvre’s treatment of
the same topic is notable only in its complete absence. Accordingly, this
presentation will focus mostly on Lefebvre’s contribution, reading the
latter’s comments on boredom through something of a “Benjaminian lens.” Such a
reading reveals that Lefebvre discriminates in subtle and nuanced ways between
different experiences and expressions of boredom, some of which are
unambiguously negative, whereas others are judged more positively, insofar as
they are, as he says in the 1962 work <I>Introduction to Modernity</I>,
“pregnant with desires, frustrated frenzies, [and] unrealized possibilities.”
In meditating on this and similar passages, we can begin to glimpse latent
connections between boredom and utopian propensities that caught the
attention, not only of Benjamin, but also other critical thinkers like Ernst
Bloch and Siegfried Kracauer. Accordingly, this talk will explore Lefebvre’s
embryonic “sociology of boredom” as a significant yet underexamined component
of what Situationist Raoul Vaneigem called the “revolution in everyday
life.”</SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 11pt"></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; COLOR: rgb(31,73,125); FONT-SIZE: 11pt"
lang=EN-US><FONT color=#000000>Michael E. Gardiner is a Professor in Sociology
at The University of Western Ontario, Canada. His books include the edited
four-volume collection <SPAN style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Mikhail Bakhtin:
Masters of Modern Social Thought</SPAN> (Sage, 2003), <SPAN
style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Critiques of Everyday Life</SPAN> (Routledge,
2000), <SPAN style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Bakhtin and the Human Sciences: No
Last Words</SPAN> (Sage, 1998, co-edited with Michael M. Bell), and <SPAN
style="FONT-STYLE: italic">The Dialogics of Critique: M. M. Bakhtin and the
Theory of Ideology</SPAN> (Routledge, 1992). He has also authored numerous
articles and book chapters dedicated to Bakhtin in particular and dialogical
social theory in general, as well as ethics, critical theories of everyday
life, and utopianism. His current research is dedicated to French thinker
Henri Lefebvre, in relation to issues of embodiment, perception and theories
of affect.</FONT><BR></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; COLOR: rgb(31,73,125); FONT-SIZE: 11pt"
lang=EN-US><SPAN class=966332810-06042010>Seminar
convenor</SPAN></SPAN></P></FONT></DIV>
<P><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Dr. Lee F. Monaghan</FONT> <BR><FONT size=2
face=Arial>Senior Lecturer</FONT> <BR><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Department of
Sociology</FONT> <BR><FONT size=2 face=Arial>University of Limerick</FONT>
<BR><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Ireland</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2 face=Arial>tel: 00353(0)61-213346</FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=2 face=Arial>e-mail: <A
href="mailto:lee.monaghan@ul.ie">lee.monaghan@ul.ie</A></FONT></P><FONT
size=2><FONT size=2><FONT size=2>
<P>http://www.ul.ie/sociology/lee.monaghan.html </P></FONT></FONT></FONT>
<DIV> </DIV></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>