Michelle Shir-Wise – författare

While abundant research has investigated time use, much less attention has been given to the cultural meanings attached to free time and what these may express with regard to conceptions of freedom and the self. In an attempt to fill this gap, Michelle Shir-Wise examines not only what people do in their free time, but also how they perceive, interpret and experience it, and in what way it relates to notions of happiness, freedom and the ideal self. Time, Freedom and the Self draws on contemporary theoretical debates concerning the relation between discourse, cultural repertoires, subjective meaning and agency, as well as literature around the sociology of leisure, to inform a unique interpretation of free time (“disciplined freedom”), developed in the light of questionnaires and in-depth interviews with middle-class, middle-aged participants in suburban Israel.

How do we know what we know?Everybody Knows That explores the often invisible “scripts of truth” that shape how we understand the world and ourselves. From widely accepted scientific ideas to everyday assumptions about success, happiness, and the self, many of the things we take to be obvious or natural are, in fact, shaped by cultural narratives that often go unnoticed and therefore rarely come into question.Drawing on sociology, media analysis, and real-life examples, we’ll examine how these scripts are formed, how they spread, and how we’ve come to take them for granted. We’ll explore the role of science, history, media, and technology—including artificial intelligence—in shaping our notions of truth.Moving from broader systems of knowledge to the level of personal experience, Everybody Knows That examines how these scripts influence the way we think we should look, act, and feel. It invites us to reconsider familiar beliefs, become more aware of the forces that shape those beliefs, and think more carefully about what we accept as true.