ABSTRACT
The Introduction provides an overview of Towards a General Theory of Boredom: A Case Study of Anglo and Russian Society. It formulates a theoretical framework of anomie and temporality causing boredom and of Anglo and Russian society shaping its particular expression. It offers clarification on anomie’s translation from French and on anomie’s definition. The Introduction begins to explain the emergence of boredom in modernity and briefly introduces each chapter by mentioning its supporting cases: archetypes of boredom in literature, boredom in art, with a focus on the death of traditional art and on the emergence of the Aesthetic of Indifference, and boredom in politics, including its implications of the electorate, for war efforts, and for strategies enacted by Queer intellectuals. Collaterally, it explains boredom’s minimal presence outside of the West and offers compelling examples of unpleasant waiting interacting with class and gender, and coins the term conspicuous boredom. Importantly, the Introduction extends Durkheim’s theory of suicide to boredom and considers whether an imbalance between social regulation and integration leads to boredom. This chapter ends by making a case for reviving the study of common everyday experience such as boredom.
