“I’m bored,” are dreaded words parents hear from the backseat on a road trip, but the problem may be inevitable. In Boredom: A Lively History Peter Toohey contextualizes boredom using various artistic and literary examples and ultimately theorizes that boredom may actually be a good thing and stimulate creativity. From
Follow @yaleSCIbooks How are you? It’s a question we are constantly asking—on the sidewalk, over the copier, at the dinner table. Almost invariably the answer is noncommittal. “Fine.” “Okay.” “I’m doing well.” What about “happy”? Happiness is hard to talk about—not least because we have so many definitions of what
Follow @yaleSCIbooks Walk out of your city office building and you might have half a dozen choices of nearby places to eat lunch; choose the sandwich shop across the street and inside, you have to choose from among five fillings, three types of bread, and myriad toppings. You have just
Following the success of The Craftsman, the renowned Richard Sennett further explores craft in Together: The Rituals, Pleasures and Politics of Cooperation, addressing how we can create a better society by learning to truly listen and cooperate with others, even when our interests are conflicting. Salon.com ran an excerpt from
With heavy hearts and minds, we said good-bye to Elisabeth Young-Bruehl at the beginning of December, who, over her career as a psychoanalyst, writer, biographer, and philosopher, contributed immensely to our understanding of humanity and modern social conscience. In the Chronicle Review, Peter Monaghan wrote a poignant tribute to her
Follow @yaleSCIbooks Sarah Underwood— A lot more sheep were involved in my college experiences than is probably typical. Colonial Williamsburg overlaps the College of William and Mary’s campus, so my friends and I had easy access to the reconstructed historical buildings and gardens. Because I’m a nerd (typical of W&M),
Follow @yaleSCIbooks We’re starting off the New Year by taking a close look at where we are, how we got there, and what we can do to change. This month we’ll be covering new books like Austin Troy’s The Very Hungry City, examining energy and economic sensibilities for cities and
Follow @yaleSCIbooks In the past weeks, we covered the deaths associated with a book on childrearing, bringing it into conversation with Childism: Confronting Prejudice Against Children, a new book by psychoanalyst and writer Elisabeth Young-Bruehl. All too sadly, it was not long before we shared the news that Young-Bruehl passed
“I love you.” We call them “three little words,” and yet in Western thought, love as a concept is anything but a small concern. In fact, in Love: A History, Simon May demonstrates the way in which love has grown into a veritable colossus in our cultural consciousness, providing the
Sarah Underwood— Quite a few people, places, and things “lost it” in 2011. Ireland, Spain, Portugal, and Greecelost it early on this year. Osama bin Laden lost it. Multiple Arab dictators lost it. The economy never had it, but Greecemanaged to lose it again. The media keeps suggesting that even