GU4250: Exhaustion and Idleness in Literature and Medicine | S. Goyal

Comparative Literature
Undergraduate and Graduate Seminar
Course Time TBD

“I’m exhausted.” That refrain has rung out repeatedly during the last two years. It has been both a cry for help and a rallying cry. Exhaustion is a state of being characterized by extreme fatigue, torpor, and lassitude. It can be a response to the unbearable weight of personal experience or a more extensive cultural formation. It is also a medical symptom (eg anemia and heart failure) and a diagnosis in its own right (chronic fatigue syndrome), though one whose status is uncertain. Exhaustion can be spiritual, intellectual, emotional, sexual, or political. Whether as medical symptom, disease, individual experience or response to impossible expectations, the feelings and causes of exhaustion dominate our conversations. Exhaustion is often reframed as idleness, especially under economic systems that prioritize productivity, efficiency and work. Idleness carries a negative connotation and the exhausted are stigmatized as lazy or unwilling to work. But idleness itself can be recast as a source of play, freedom and plenitude. Wool-gathering and day dreaming provide the kernels for creative endeavors and alternate possibilities, while slowdowns and strikes position idleness as a form of resistance to hegemonic and exploitative forces that want to “work us to the bone”. Far from an indignity, idleness might be the very balm to an exhausted and weary world.

Link to Vergil
Note: only courses offered during the two previous semesters have active Vergil links. 

Please note: The Center does not administer the courses listed below and is not responsible for any changes in the content. For more information, please check the course directory or reach out directly to the instructor.