This dissertation examines how boredom can be understood in the context of Henri Lefebvre’s (1901-1991) critique of everyday life. Through an integration of the boredom literature, both the fully developed studies as well as fragmentary passages, I argue that Lefebvre’s critique of everyday life adds an important dimension to understanding boredom in modernity. One of the leading strands in boredom studies today argues that boredom is an historically specific experience unique to the rhythms of life imparted with the onset of modernity. Viewed in this light, boredom is a relatively recent phenomenon that can be linked to what Lefebvre calls the ‘double process’ of industrialization and urbanization. Although the mass profusion of boredom has left a seemingly indelible mark on society, it has received relatively little attention in both everyday life and academia. First coined in the middle of the 19th century, boredom is a relatively new word for what today is an all too pervasive experience. Writing throughout most of the 20th century, Lefebvre makes numerous references to boredom, yet, despite claiming that a study of boredom would be a significant contribution to his critique of everyday life, he never developed an in-depth and sustained analysis of this experience. Lefebvre did, however, identify an internal dialectic of mass culture as being an integral component for understanding boredom. It is argued that Lefebvre’s theory of a dialectical process inherent to mass culture is a key for understanding boredom as an historically specific phenomenon. In organizing this dissertation, a constellation of themes are presented in order to articulate this dialectic. After exploring boredom’s relationship to modernity, I then discuss what Lefebvre considers as the verso of modernity, everyday life. Following this, I consider the contradictions of space that give rise to boredom in urban centres and suburban peripheries by critically analyzing both the production of those spaces as well as how they are consumed in everyday life. Finally, I consider the escape from boredom offered in select sounds and images of the culture industry and its opposite, the embrace of boredom in certain 20th century avant-garde art movements. Through a reading of Lefebvre’s critique of everyday life and complementary texts, this interdisciplinary dissertation is a contribution to understanding the mass phenomenon of boredom in modernity.

Berlin, Techn. Univ., Diss., 2010.

Anthropological research discusses the potential of light to act as a social agent, influence culture and substantially effect the ways that people interact. To enrich this scholarship with ethnographic engagement the following analysis applies and expands upon these concepts while discussing a database documentary about the moonlight towers of Austin, Texas. Moonlight towers are historic street lights dating from the late 19th century that are no longer necessary to light the city and yet they remain as fine engineered sentinels, shedding mercury vapor luminance over the city. This is a meditative inquiry into the types of agency light has in particular spaces referred to in this work as the ruminating concept of lightspace. As a concept, lightspace refers to the experience of light in space and is concerned with how light illuminates and shapes the everyday, tracing fissures between inclusion and exclusion. This work acknowledges the existence of lightspace in order to show there are ways that light shapes our experiences of which we are only partially aware. In the midst of this attunement to the experience of light are valid ideas about how people in Austin, Texas relate to space and to each other. The work of Henri Lefebvre is used as a point of departure to develop the concept of lightspace. In The Production of Space, Lefebvre arrives at the conclusion that the experience of geographical space is fundamentally social by making connections between perceived space and conceived space to create lived space of the imagination (1978: 70). In this philosophy, perceived space as constitutes our lived, everyday experience of space, while conceived space is a translation of perceived space using knowledge, signs, and codes, such as a map. Lived space then is our own unique, individual negotiation of perceived space using conceived space. This introduction to lightspace shows how connecting perceived and conceived lightspace in Austin reveals a lived experience of light in the imagination. / text

Orientador: Ernesto Jacob Keim. / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Regional de Blumenau, Centro de Ciências da Educação, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Educação.

This dissertation, Visualizing Virtual Space in Modern and Postmodern Literature, explores the nature of the virtual as it relates to Henri Lefebvre’s conception of spatial practice in literature and culture. The goal of this analysis is to locate a site within theories of space for the inclusion of the postmodern object narratives that have emerged in contemporary culture. In order to accomplish this goal, I have created a semantic square that configures Lefebvre's three conceptions of space with a new fourth term, integral space. The emergence of integral space is developed through the analysis of fiction by four major authors: William Gibson, Marcel Proust, James Joyce and David Foster Wallace. Each of these authors engages the virtual through a different narrative approach. Gibson uses the virtual to create the spatial practice of his characters. Proust uses the virtual to undermine the representations of space inherent in the autobiography. Joyce virtualizes his main character, through the narration, in order to build representational spaces. Finally, Wallace uses the virtual to create integral spaces of cultural critique for the subject of his text. By situating these four authors at vertices of the semantic square, the inherent dialectical conflicts among their positions are revealed. The exploration of these conflicts reveals the cultural power of integral space within contemporary practice. Integral spaces emerge through the postmodern process of cultural accumulation. The power of these spaces is their ability to reveal to their subjects the nature of the spatial practice that directs their everyday lives. The aesthetics of integral practice are firmly rooted in the later theories of Theodor Adorno. Adorno's aesthetics operate by negating the negation of identity in the subject. The synthesis of Adornian aesthetics with integral space allows the subject to create object narratives from the fractured materials of postmodern culture. This analysis uses the space created by this synthesis to explore the agency of the subject in contemporary spatial practice. Ultimately, integral spaces will be developed as the primary arena of spatial understanding in both contemporary literature and spatial practice. / acase@tulane.edu

Zugl.: Berlin, Techn. Univ., Diss., 2008 u.d.T.: Bertuzzo, Elisa Tullia: Fragmented perspectives, transiting signs of urbanity

Zugl.: Köln, Univ., Diss., 2007

Chan, Chun Hay. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 195-232). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / Acknowledgement --- p.iii / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 2 --- The Intellectual Trajectory of Sociology of Everyday Life --- p.26 / Chapter 3 --- The New (French) Context --- p.50 / Chapter 4 --- Henri Lefebvre --- p.70 / Chapter 5 --- Michel de Certeau --- p.120 / Chapter 6 --- Conclusion --- p.162 / Bibliography --- p.195

Zugl.: Heidelberg, Univ., Magisterarbeit, 2006

Dans ce travail, on analyse la conception de l’espace formulée par Henri Lefebvre entre la fin des années cinquante et la moitié des années soixante-dix, cherchant à identifier les articulations théorico-politiques les plus importantes et leurs possibles développements. Le premier chapitre est consacré à l’analyse lefebvrienne de la métropole fordiste : le rôle de l’espace dans la production de la quotidienneté, comme organisation systémique de la reproduction sociale. Le deuxième chapitre examine le passage à la « société urbaine » : l’explosion progressive de l’espace d’accumulation keynésiano-fordiste et la formation d’un nouveau sujet de classe, irréductible à l’image du prolétaire industriel. Enfin, le troisième chapitre approfondit la conception constructiviste de l’espace élaborée par Lefebvre et l’hypothèse d’une critique de l’économie politique de l’espace. Un parcours qui conduit à la description d’un modèle articulé et complexe de l’espace politique, centré sur les processus d’urbanisation, rescaling et mondialisation. La thèse illustre de manière globale le parcours théorique qui à partir de l’examen d’une spatialité keynésiano-fordiste conduit Lefebvre à l’analyse de l’« espace néolibéral » émergeant , pour en discuter de manière critique l’actualité. / In this work, we analyze the conception of the space elaborated by Henri Lefebvre between the late fifties and the first half of the seventies, seeking to identify the most important theoretical and political articulations and their possible developments. The first chapter is devoted to Lefebvre’s analysis of Fordist metropolis: the role of the space in the production of everydayness, as a systemic organization of social reproduction. The second chapter examines the transition to “urban society”: the progressive explosion of Keynesian-Fordist space and the formation of a new class subject, irreducible to the image of the industrial proletarian. The third chapter deepens the constructivist conception of the space developed by Lefebvre, and the hypothesis of a critique of the political economy of the space. A path that leads to the description of an articulated and complex model of political space, focusing on the process of urbanization, rescaling and globalization. The dissertation shows comprehensively the theoretical movement, which from the examination of a Keynesian-Fordist spatiality leads Lefebvre to the analysis of the emerging “neoliberal space”, to critically discuss its actuality. / In questo lavoro si analizza la concezione dello spazio formulata da Henri Lefebvre tra la fine degli anni Cinquanta e la metà degli anni Settanta, cercando di individuare gli snodi teorico-politici più importanti e i possibili sviluppi. Il primo capitolo è dedicato all'analisi lefebvriana della metropoli fordista: al ruolo dello spazio nella produzione della quotidianità come organizzazione sistemica della riproduzione sociale. Nel secondo capitolo si esamina il passaggio alla «società urbana»: l'esplosione progressiva dello spazio di accumulazione keynessiano-fordista e la formazione di un nuovo soggetto di classe, non riducibile all'immagine del proletariato industriale. Nel terzo capitolo, infine, vengono approfondite la concezione costruttivistica dello spazio elaborata da Lefebvre e l'ipotesi di una critica dell'economia politica dello spazio. Un percorso che conduce alla descrizione di un modello articolato e complesso dello spazio politico incentrato sui processi di urbanizzazione, riscaling e mondializzazione. Complessivamente, la tesi illustra il percorso teorico che, dalla disamina di una spazialità keynessiano-fordista, conduce Lefebvre all'analisi dello «spazio neoliberale» emergente e ne discute criticamente l'attualità.