• Upcoming
  • Archive
  • About
  • Location
  • Press
  • Practical Fridays
  • Outside Sundays

Theory Tuesdays

Theory Tuesdays is a nonacademic platform for theoretical discussion founded, organized and coordinated by artist Philip Matesic since 2009 in Zürich, Switzerland. Participants read beforehand then discuss contemporary art, design, literary, cultural and critical theory on a weekly basis, with texts selected and introduced each week by a different person.

  • Upcoming
  • Archive
  • About
  • Location
  • Press
  • Practical Fridays
  • Outside Sundays

Tuesday 31st January 2017, 8:00pm

Session 169: “The Burnout Society” by Byung-Chul Han

During this Theory Tuesdays session, Gaël Sapin presented excerpts from “The Burnout Society” by Byung-Chul Han (Stanford Briefs, 2015).

“Our competitive, service-oriented societies are taking a toll on the late-modern individual. Rather than improving life, multitasking, ‘user-friendly’ technology, and the culture of convenience are producing disorders that range from depression to attention deficit disorder to borderline personality disorder. Byung-Chul Han interprets the spreading malaise as an inability to manage negative experiences in an age characterized by excessive positivity and the universal availability of people and goods. Stress and exhaustion are not just personal experiences, but social and historical phenomena as well. Denouncing a world in which every against-the-grain response can lead to further disempowerment, he draws on literature, philosophy, and the social and natural sciences to explore the stakes of sacrificing intermittent intellectual reflection for constant neural connection.” -Book Cover

Participants: 11

Burnout Society – Han

< Back to Archive

© 2022 Theory Tuesdays
Founded and coordinated by Philip Matesic.