Josefa Ros Velasco – författare

A transformative exploration of a painful emotionBoredom visits all of us at some point. Sometimes it is fleeting. Other times it is deep, lasting, or profound. We even experience it in groups. Boredom can be so intolerable that some are willing to do almost anything just to escape it. In this provocative and eloquently argued book, Josefa Ros Velasco invites us to listen to the voice of boredom, explore the reasons behind it, and allow it to guide our actions and return us to a place of satisfaction.Shedding light on a universal yet misunderstood aspect of the human experience, Ros Velasco shows how boredom is a phenomenon that torments us when reality does not meet our expectations. While it has been described as an illness of the soul and even as a pathological condition, boredom is only a symptom. Its purpose, Ros Velasco argues, is to notify us that our relationship with our surroundings is damaged, and to compel us to identify the root of the problem and address it. Along the way, she explores the cultural and intellectual history of boredom, tracing how philosophers, theologians, literary figures, and clinicians have contended with this unpleasant, sometimes tortuous state of mind.Drawing insights from thinkers ranging from Horace and Augustine to Goethe, Kierkegaard, and Heidegger, The Disease of Boredom explains boredom as an emotional call to action and advocates for a radical change in how we perceive and deal with tedium.

From Lucretius’s horror loci and Buddhist drowsiness to the religious boredom of acedia and the philosophical explorations of Kant, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, and Heidegger, boredom has long been a subject of philosophical fascination. Its story, unfolding through millennia, encompasses apathy, weariness, disaffection, melancholy, ennui, tedium, and monotony. Today, boredom assumes new forms: the drudgery of precarious work, the alienation of neoliberalism, the emptiness of leisure, and the overstimulation of our hyperconnected, technologically saturated lives.The History and Philosophy of Boredom is an outstanding collection, exploring boredom’s intellectual history from its early origins in classical thought to its contemporary manifestations. Containing eighteen specially commissioned chapters by an international team of contributors, the volume is organized into four thematic parts:Ancient Philosophical PerspectivesReligious and Medieval ExplorationsModern Philosophical InvestigationsCritical and Interdisciplinary ApproachesTopics include boredom in Socratic dialogue, Daoist and Buddhist traditions, Stoicism, and Cynicism; the religious significance of boredom in Judaism and early Christianity; boredom’s role in the works of Kant, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Mill, and Nietzsche; philosophical pessimism; phenomenological approaches; boredom as a political phenomenon; and boredom’s intersections with capitalism, socialism, racial identity, and transhumanism.The History and Philosophy of Boredom is indispensable for students and researchers in the history of philosophy, emotion studies, phenomenology, and moral psychology. It will also interest scholars in religion, classics, sociology, and the history of psychology.

The Faces of Depression in Literature brings together some of the best-known specialists and scholars on the topic of depression in literature worldwide to offer a multidisciplinary approach concerning the philosophical, theological, and literary narratives of depression over time and their approximations to the current, clinical understanding of Major Depressive Disorder. The authors clarify the background of depression by paying attention to its representation through these narratives and revalue them as a means of acquiring knowledge in an interdisciplinary way. This pioneering initiative fills the knowledge gap that still exists concerning the nature of depression from a multidisciplinary perspective that takes into account some cross-cutting narratives. The authors give voice to the forgotten manifestations of depression found in literature, philosophy, theology, and even early medical works. The Faces of Depression in Literature is for graduates and researchers on depression from a cultural and social point of view, including philosophers, historians, cultural theorists, literature and art experts and enthusiasts, as well as artists and writers themselves, specialists in mental health and cognitive psychology, and anyone interested in a better understanding of the human condition.

This book offers a unique perspective on the topic of boredom, with chapters written by diverse representatives of various mental health disciplines and philosophical approaches. On one hand, studying boredom involves the mental processes of attention, memory, perception, creativity, or language use; on the other, boredom can be understood by taking into account many pathological conditions such as depression, stress, and anxiety. This book seeks to fill the knowledge gap in research by discussing boredom through an interdisciplinary dialogue, giving a comprehensive overview of the past and current literature within boredom studies, while discussing the neural bases and causes of boredom and its potential consequences and implications for individual and social well-being. Chapters explore the many facets of boredom, including:Understanding the cognitive-affective mechanisms underlying experiences of boredomPhilosophical perspectives on boredom, self-consciousness, and narrativeHow boredom shapes both basic and complex human thoughts, feelings, and behavior Analyzing boredom within Freudian and Lacanian frameworks Boredom Is in Your Mind: A Shared Psychological-Philosophical Approach is a pioneering work that brings together threads of cross-disciplinary boredom research into one comprehensive resource. It is relevant for graduate students and researchers in myriad intersecting disciplines, among them cognitive psychology, cognitive neurosciences, and clinical psychology, as well as philosophy, logic, religion, and other areas of the humanities and social sciences.

This book offers a unique perspective on the topic of boredom, with chapters written by diverse representatives of various mental health disciplines and philosophical approaches. On one hand, studying boredom involves the mental processes of attention, memory, perception, creativity, or language use; on the other, boredom can be understood by taking into account many pathological conditions such as depression, stress, and anxiety. This book seeks to fill the knowledge gap in research by discussing boredom through an interdisciplinary dialogue, giving a comprehensive overview of the past and current literature within boredom studies, while discussing the neural bases and causes of boredom and its potential consequences and implications for individual and social well-being. Chapters explore the many facets of boredom, including:Understanding the cognitive-affective mechanisms underlying experiences of boredomPhilosophical perspectives on boredom, self-consciousness, and narrativeHow boredom shapes both basic and complex human thoughts, feelings, and behavior Analyzing boredom within Freudian and Lacanian frameworks Boredom Is in Your Mind: A Shared Psychological-Philosophical Approach is a pioneering work that brings together threads of cross-disciplinary boredom research into one comprehensive resource. It is relevant for graduate students and researchers in myriad intersecting disciplines, among them cognitive psychology, cognitive neurosciences, and clinical psychology, as well as philosophy, logic, religion, and other areas of the humanities and social sciences.

This book analyzes the social and contextual causes of suicide, the existential and philosophical reasons for committing suicide, and the prevention strategies that modern fictional literature places at our disposal.

This volume is the continuation of the book Suicide in Modern Literature, edited by Josefa Ros Velasco. Considering the positive reception of this book, Ros Velasco launches the second part, entitled The Contemporary Writer and their Suicide. This time, leading representatives of various disciplines analyze the literary, philosophical, and biographical works of contemporary writers worldwide who attempted to commit suicide or achieved their goal, looking for covert and overt clues about their intentions in their writings. This book aims to continue shedding light on the social and structural causes that lead to suicide and on the suicidal mind, but also to show that people assiduous to writing usually reflect their intentions to commit suicide in their writings, to explain how these frequently veiled intentions can be revealed and interpreted, and to highlight the potential of artistic, philosophical, and autobiographical writing as a tool to detect suicidal ideation and prevent its consummation in vulnerable people. This book analyzes several case studies and their allusions to their contexts and the socio-structural and environmental violence and pressures they suffered, expressions of their will and agency, feelings of dislocation between the individual, reality, and existential alienation, and literary styles, writing techniques, and metaphorical language.

This volume is the continuation of the book Suicide in Modern Literature, edited by Josefa Ros Velasco. Considering the positive reception of this book, Ros Velasco launches the second part, entitled The Contemporary Writer and their Suicide. This time, leading representatives of various disciplines analyze the literary, philosophical, and biographical works of contemporary writers worldwide who attempted to commit suicide or achieved their goal, looking for covert and overt clues about their intentions in their writings. This book aims to continue shedding light on the social and structural causes that lead to suicide and on the suicidal mind, but also to show that people assiduous to writing usually reflect their intentions to commit suicide in their writings, to explain how these frequently veiled intentions can be revealed and interpreted, and to highlight the potential of artistic, philosophical, and autobiographical writing as a tool to detect suicidal ideation and prevent its consummation in vulnerable people. This book analyzes several case studies and their allusions to their contexts and the socio-structural and environmental violence and pressures they suffered, expressions of their will and agency, feelings of dislocation between the individual, reality, and existential alienation, and literary styles, writing techniques, and metaphorical language.

This book collects the lifelong research on boredom by American psychologist Augustin de la Peña (1942-2021). It focuses on the experience of boredom—and other similar states, including ennui, melancholy, laziness, interest, attention, and entertainment—and its associated behaviors. Offering an interdisciplinary chronicle of boredom, from Antiquity to the present, special attention is paid to its daily experience as a ubiquitous phenomenon that informs cultural and political actions that continue to shape our society. Dr. de la Peña describes the obsolescence of the Western Commonsense View of Reality to propose a Developmental Psychophysiological Approach to Reality, reconceptualizing boredom. The book theorizes the condition as both logical and emotional, an axis that has defined the sensibility of the modern era. This is a volume edited posthumously by Josefa Ros Velasco and Christian Parreno in homage to Augustin’s work and his invaluable contribution to the establishment of the field of boredom studies.

This book collects the lifelong research on boredom by American psychologist Augustin de la Peña (1942-2021).