Journal of Boredom Studies

Where One Is: Between Boredom and Architecture

2025-11-14T17:19:03+01:00

Where One Is: Between Boredom and Architecture reflects on a formative encounter with boredom in the context of architectural practice. Recounted through an episode in central London, the essay approaches boredom not simply as repetition or disinterest, but as a mood that destabilises notions of value, orientation and purpose. Rather than a pathology to be remedied, boredom emerges as a diffuse and ambiguous thread—entangled with time, attention and desire—through which architecture can be thought critically.

August

2026-01-20T11:36:46+01:00

How to cite this paper: Toohey, P. (2026). August. Journal of Boredom Studies, 4. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18311474

An Answer to the Question: “How and why I became a boredom researcher/scholar?”

2025-12-30T22:14:57+01:00

A short essay written in response to the question “How and why I became a boredom researcher/scholar?”, this text tells the story of Haladyn's discovery of boredom as a research area and, along with Michael E. Gardiner, his contributions to the field of Boredom Studies.

How and Why I Became a Boredom Researcher/Scholar: Between Restlessness and Presence—Notes from a Life Accompanied by Boredom

2025-11-04T15:10:19+01:00

An Answer to the Question: “How and Why I Became a Boredom Researcher/Scholar?”. The Significance of Investigating Boredom Amidst a Loss of Meaning

2026-02-25T12:42:35+01:00

This article addresses how and why I became a boredom researcher by tracing the evolution of my philosophical understanding of boredom. Initially explored in relation to capitalism and the logic of perpetual consumption—particularly within the fashion system and its production of the “new”—boredom appeared as a driver of market dynamics and identity construction. Influenced by the work of Josefa Ros Velasco, my perspective shifted toward conceiving boredom as a painful and potentially chronic condition, embedded in specific socio-material contexts. This reconceptualization enabled further applications, including the analysis of situation-dependent boredom among people in prison and reflections informed by Georg Simmel. Investigating boredom thus becomes a way of interrogating meaning, agency, and alienation in contemporary societies.

On the Relation Between Oral Contraceptive Use, Boredom, and Flow

2026-03-06T11:45:16+01:00

Across two samples, we investigated the relation between oral contraceptive (OC) use and self-reports of boredom and flow proneness in undergraduate females using OCs (Sample 1: OC group N = 343, Sample 2: OC group N = 162) and females not using any form of hormonal contraceptives (Sample 1: Non-OC group N = 1191, Sample 2: Non-OC group N = 852). We measured boredom proneness and the tendency to experience ‘flow’, defined as the experience of deep and effortless concentration; we also measured semester of data collection and symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress to use as control variables. Although there were some differences between samples, the key findings were that (1) boredom proneness and flow scores showed a modest negative correlation in both samples indicating they are associated but not simply opposite constructs; (2) OC users reported significantly less boredom proneness than non-users in Sample 2 and when the samples were combined, but this relation did not reach significance in Sample 1; (3) the association between OC use and boredom proneness remained even when semester of data collection and symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress were controlled; and that (4) there were no differences between OC and Non-OC groups for measures of flow proneness. Thus, OC use is related to reduced boredom proneness, although this relation is small.

The Emotional Edgar Degas: Waiting, Boredom, and Expectation in Degas’ L’Absinthe

2026-02-17T10:51:07+01:00

This article reinterprets Edgar Degas’ L’Absinthe (1875–1876) as a complex study of emotion rather than merely a work of social critique. It argues that the painting foregrounds the interrelated experiences of waiting, boredom, and frustrated expectation, central to Degas’ depiction of modern life. Through comparison with Waiting (L’Attente) (1880–1882) and other works, the article highlights the importance of Degas’ ‘double-subject’ compositions, in which paired figures generate temporal and emotional tension. Waiting is presented as an anticipatory state tied to expectation, while boredom emerges when expectation is diminished or deferred. In L’Absinthe, the female figure embodies a condition in which expectation is not absent but blunted, producing a more complex emotional state than the conventional ‘situational’ boredom seen in works such as Manet’s La Prune. Degas thus offers a nuanced representation of modern emotional life that anticipates later notions of existential boredom.