Overview

Doing Nothing is a book about doing nothing in a system where there is always something pressing that ought to be done. Not the productive unstructured time of self-help books, but the aimless and ineffective doing nothing of procrastination, resignation, and melancholia. James Currie pursues these themes across a wide terrain of experiences, materials, and examples from the personal, local, and anecdotal, through to the existential, cosmological, and apocalyptic—reflecting, among other things, on the COVID pandemic, the lives of teenagers, Lars Van Trier’s 2011 film Melancholia, work, play, and politics. Doing Nothing offers a lived-in embrace of queer states of being that stand against liveliness and the mournful feelings of entrapment and shame that exist alongside the unexpected opportunities such situations afford.

Full Product Details

9781478029601

Table of Contents

Reviews

“To show us the view from doing nothing, while Currie is, of course, doing many things, is a wonderful paradox from which to begin. Especially in a moment where depression and dissociation are being theorized anew, Doing Nothing is provocative and against the grain of how-tos and wellness culture.”—Hannah Zeavin, author of, The Distance Cure: A History of Teletherapy

Author Information

James Currie is a multi-arts practitioner and Associate Professor in the Department of Music at the University at Buffalo. He is the author of Music and the Politics of Negation.

Tab Content 6

Countries Available