From Walter Benjamin to Henri Lefebvre. Prolegomena to the Sociology of Boredom

Technically speaking, there is no sociology of boredom. It does not exist in the sense that there is no corpus of studies and research methodologies that are recognized and considered as the constituent part of the sociological approach and of its disciplinary foundations. Although boredom is a long been known emotional and experiential feeling, sociology has rarely considered it as a proper object of study, letting philosophy and literature and, more recently, psychology to deal with boredom. In this essay I will try to demonstrate that the emerging problem is that it is not clear to the sociology community what is the appropriate field of study that is convenient and useful to apply to boredom. This depends not only from a lack of available social scientists in addressing the issue, but above all by the fact that boredom is an ambiguous and elusive question to be studied. It follows from this that the real problem of boredom is to recognize that none of the current scientific disciplines reveals - for itself \u2013 to be fully and satisfactorily able to grasp the inherent complexities of boredom. Through the seminal work of Walter Benjamin and Henri Lefebvre I will try to prove that he is just going through a truly interdisciplinary approach that sociologists can usefully approach the relevant social problems caused by boredom