1. Meanings of Leisure Leisure’s meanings through ….. The humanities
Ancient history
Contemporary connotations
Leisure has multiple meanings and there is no one, single, memorizable right answer definition.
This unit will expose students to the excitement of leisure’s multiple meanings.
You will discover that leisure is more complex than what you now think.
Throughout this class you will discover that leisure is more than what you do in your “Time free from work.”
In this unit, you will critically examine leisure from three perspectives:
The humanities such as literature, art & music;
Ancient history; and,
Contemporary interpretations
As we proceed, you will begin to understand your own leisure in new, more meaningful ways.
Let’s get started.

2. Using the humanities to understand leisure meaning
Humanities are areas of creation whose subject is human experience.
Art, Literature and Music
Related terms:
Impressionism
Aesthetic
Arête
Humanities can be defined as “areas of creation whose subject is human experience”
They include songs, stories, paintings, poems, dance, and other art forms
Humanities include the arts as well as other disciplines such as literature and music. The arts, broadly speaking, are artificial objects or experiences created by humans. Therefore, the arts (and other disciplines within the humanities), ultimately provide a record of human experience.
Leisure is an important part of the human experience across time and cultures, therefore, we can understand meaning in leisure by examining the theme of leisure in art, literature and music
Let’s review some terms to enhance your understanding of this topic:
Impressionism is typically used to describe a style of art that presents an immediate “impression” of an object or event. Impressionist painters take a snapshot of what a person would see at a glance. In terms of art history, impressionism refers to a group of painters exhibiting in Paris from This idea of portraying “impressions.” or snapshots of what the eye would see, can also be applied to music and literature
Aesthetic has to do with a sense of beauty, “Aesthetics” is the study of the nature of beauty, and standards for what is considered beautiful change across time and culture. Many of the humanities attempt to show us something that is beautiful about leisure experiences.
Arête (pronounced R-E-T) is a Greek word that roughly translates as “virtue.” Its central meaning in ancient Greece was excellence of any kind, but it was also associated with the idea of fulfillment of function. For example, to strive for excellence of the body could be to achieve physical perfection in beauty, agility, and strength. In striving for arête, the ancient Greeks portray the spirit of striving for physical, spiritual, and mental excellence through leisure pursuits. You can probably relate to arête (striving for excellence) as it applies to our contemporary sport experiences.
Your text contains some excellent examples of leisure in literature & poetry, art, and music. We will discuss several of them in the next few slides.

3. Leisure and Literature
Greeting cards, poems, novels, advertising, books, short stories and poems can all portray leisure:
“Hand of Cards” from Four Against Everest by Woodrow Wilson Sayre
“Each one of us is dealt a hand of cards by life. It’s not so much the hand you get dealt but what you do with what you’ve got.”
Greeting cards, poems, novels, advertising, books, short stories and poems can all portray leisure:
Consider the short reading, “Hands of Cards” from Four Against Everest by Woodrow Wilson Sayre,
“Each one of us is dealt a hand of cards by life. It’s not so much the hand you get dealt, but what you do with what you’ve got.”
In this statement Sayre is using the card game as a metaphor for life--this is not so much an impressionist image (that is, one where the author is giving us a snapshot or a feeling of the immediate sensation of an event), but rather it is an image where the author is teaching us a lesson about life through an image from our leisure experience.
We know that cards are dealt at random, and that we have no real influence--fate determines what we get. But no matter what you get you can do something with it, and that is the true test of humanity. Being human, one thing we do have control over is our own attitude, and one’s attitude can influence what happens in one’s life. For example, Henry Ford once said, “If you think you can, or you think you can’t, either way you’re right”
In chapter 1 turn to the short story “Still of Some Use.” This story is more of an impressionist work, giving the reader some idea of what it must have felt like to be there and more so what the experience felt like from each person’s perspective. Consider, for example, what it would feel like to be Foster, the ex-wife, or the older and younger son.

4. Another literary image of leisure
A scene from “The Big War” by Anton Myrer (author of the bestselling “The Last Convertible”) where Al, a marine, is describing in a letter home what it is like on board the transport ship where the marines are bored with nothing to do …
Consider another literary image of leisure. This is a scene from a book called The Big War by Antone Myrer. In this scene Al, a marine, is describing in a letter home to his girlfriend what it’s like to be on board a transport ship where the marines are bored and they have nothing to do.
“Near me Corporal Schulman is playing chess with Capistron, My [chess] set: everybody shunned it like the plague when I first broke it out. “hey, get that, Hey how intel-ect-tual we’re getting this trip” … But we’ve been out over a month now (my God-a month!) and the comic books and terror tales have all be digested and re-digested and regurgitated, and finally Connor and Jay broke down one day after I’d been playing with Schulman and asked me to teach them the moves. And lo and behold it has become a craze, with people waiting their turn and a sort of unofficial tournament under way. My God--that boredom should drive men to intellectual pursuits and pastimes! Heretical thought. Yet so it does indeed seem: Jay is even now dipping into my “Iliad with mixed emotions (“Yeah, it’s not bad, but I don’t know, Al--do they really expect you to swallow that King Kong routine?)… Can it be the boredom will reach such heights they’ll even (dread conjecture!) read Yeats and Eliot and Hopkins, or even Shakespeare? Egad sir: who knows what properly enforced boredom on the national level might not achieve in the name of culture”
This passage implies that when faced with too much boredom, the marines eventually sought out intellectual pursuits (such as chess and reading literature) for their leisure. The Greeks believed that people who were free from laborious work had an obligation to pursue truth and self-understanding during their free time, and they would have considered intellectual pursuits, such as those described above, to be leisure.
Here’s three questions for you to think about:
Is there such a thing as too much boredom?
How do you respond when you have too much free time and nothing to do?
Once you’ve been bored for a while, do you find you start looking for something productive (like work or chores) or something self-enhancing and intrinsically satisfying (like reading, stimulating conversation, painting, writing or music)?
[pause]
And here is some additional food for thought:
In today’s society most people are stressed by the pace of life and rest when they get free time by seeking something low-key so they can be refreshed for work. Clearly rest and relaxation is important, and when we are stressed out and tired we need it. The question becomes, do we, as humans, also require a more humanistic form of leisure pursuits? The Ancient Greeks thought so, and so do today’s positive psychology experts. Thom Goodale, a retired leisure studies professor asked, “Once we are rested then what?”
So, a question you can ask yourself at this juncture is whether or not you believe time spent in activities related to the pursuit of truth and self-understanding are a form of leisure in your life?

5. Claude Monet Regatta
The aesthetic experience is frequently conveyed through art. The impressionist painters broke away from realism around 1870 by popularizing impressions that could be had during one’s pastimes.
During the 1870s Monet developed his technique for painting atmospheric outdoor light, using broken, rhythmic brushstrokes. He received a lot of abuse from public and critics alike, who complained that the paintings were formless, unfinished, and ugly. He and his family endured poverty. However, by the 1880s, his paintings started to sell.
Monet remained loyal to the impressionists' early goal of capturing the temporary effects of nature through direct observation. This picture, the Regatta, shows boats sailing in a race (at leisure). They're contrasted with a fishing boat in the foreground, perhaps this boat is working. During this time period in France, vacationers and fisherman in Paris had to share the beach. As this picture shows, a number of visitors are watching the race while the three mariners talk together in their beached boat.

6. Edouard Manet “Masked Ball at the Opera”
Breaking with traditional religious and mythological subject matter, Manet embraced the notion of modernity and portrayed contemporary life as he saw it. The appearance of the everyday world of the Paris boulevards in his paintings alarmed contemporary viewers as less-flattering presentations became the subject matter of art.
This painting shows a slice of the elaborate social world of the upper class which involved parties, balls, horse races, and strolls by people dressed in the latest fashions. The masked balls at the Opera were at the top of a long list of public dances. Manet’s men, dressed in black to signal self-control and a knowing reserve, a public decorum all the easier to maintain because of the certainty they felt of being masters of the women they sought, or who sought them. Note the partial embraces with eager women leaning forward and cooler men remaining more aloof.

7. Pierre August Renoir “Dance at the Moulin de la Galette”
Along with Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir helped found Impressionism, freeing painting from having to tell a story. Artists could simply capture what they saw. Renoir told his son Jean, whose importance as filmmaker equaled his father's as painter that "The artist who uses the least of what is called imagination will be the greatest.”
In this dance scene Renior portrays the Montmarte dance. This was an old-fashioned Sunday dance that attracted people from its own neighborhood. Many of the characters in this painting are people Renior knew. This painting does not portray an ordinary dance as you might think but rather a group of middle class painters and writers who came to the dance to dance with, and admire, the young working women and use them as models. The men and women portrayed are all under thirty, and are attracted to one another without a hint of detachment, as opposed to the detachment shown through partial embraces in Manet’s previous painting.

8. Edgar Degas “Absinthe”
By the mid-1860s Degas was turning to modern themes, particularly contemporary Parisian life. Unlike other Impressionists, he emphasized composition and drawing, and he usually did not paint outdoors.
In this painting, Degas’ mood is very different from the momentary check and pause in life created by Manet. The woman in Absinthe is down-and-out, shoulders slumped, eyes down-cast, feet splayed out, and her costume frowsy. She will derive little comfort from the man next to her, the kind of elbow-leaner who will remain there for hours. This is one of Degas’ most devasting images of public life. The drink in front of the woman is readily identified as Absinthe by it’s green color, a drink which was assumed to have addictive and dangerous qualities, and therefore different from the “hygenic beverages” like beer and wine. If you’ve seen the modern film Euro-trip you’ve seen a more current portrayal of the impact of Absinthe. The man in the picture is drinking a “mazagran” which was a hangover remedy.
If you want to explore the subject of art and leisure in more detail, see the book used we used as a reference called Impressionism, Art, Leisure and Parisian Society by Robert Herbert.

9. Music: A basic and universal activity of humans
It reflects much about a society and
subcultures within that society.
It has various styles.
Many popular songs describe impressions
and meaning of leisure experiences.
Music, like play, is considered to be one of the most basic and universal activity of humans because music reflects much about a society and sub-cultures within that society.
Consider various popular music styles in America today: rock, rap, funk, blues, county, gospel, classical, jazz and others.
Many popular songs describe impressions and meaning of leisure experiences. For example:
“Unchained melody” sung by Leeann Rimes (and others) illustrates what time feels like when you’re in love.
“All I Wanna Do” by Sheryl Crowe contrasts attitudes of living in the present and having fun versus what it’s like to be working.
“Cowboy Take Me Away” by the Dixie Chicks speaks of how getting re-connected with nature will help her get back in touch with herself.
“Live Like You Were Dying” by Tim McGraw encourages you to live each day like it’s going to be your last
Consider impressionist phrases in songs, such as those that mention atmospheric effects like sun, rain and wind. For example, the ever popular “Margaritavillle” by Jimmy Buffet starts with the words “Nibblin on sponge cake, Watchin the sun bake …”
What examples from your favorite songs speak to you?

10. In summary, the humanities of art, literature, and music offer many glimpses of leisure meaning
Can you think examples from each of these genres that portray leisure as …
As achieving the good life
As an emotional outlet
As peace and quiet
As connection with nature
As idleness
As excitement
As sociability
As ….. [whatever you want]
To summarize this topic, the humanities of art, literature and music offer many glimpses of leisure meaning. Given enough time for reflection, you could likely recall examples from each of these three genres that portray leisure as …
achieving the good life
an emotional outlet
peace and quiet
connection with nature
Idleness
Excitement
sociability
As ….. [whatever you want; you fill in the blank!]
Consider which of these leisure meanings you would like to seek out the next time you get a block of free time. Often all it takes to have a more fulfilling life is a little more awareness of our options. Once we become more aware of our choices, we have the personal power to choose more experiences that contribute to our well-being.

11. Leisure legacies from Ancient cultures:
The arts
Contemplation
Learning
Mass spectacle
Festivals and holidays
Lush gardens
Sports
Ancient cultures provide many legacies that form a basis for modern leisure. Your text covers six cultural hearths (or “cradles”) of particular systems of civilization. In addition to the material covered by Russell, consider the variety of legacies from the past that people still do today:
Arts—Including paintings, street art, music, dance
Contemplation-related activities—such as reading, meditation, religion, yoga & martial arts
Learning—such as reading a thought provoking book or going to a museum
Mass spectacle—entertainment events such as football and hockey games
Festivals and holidays—like Christmas, Thanksgiving, and the 4th of July
Lush gardens—public spaces like Central park and manicured gardens. If you live in Greenville, NC, visit the Tryon Palace in New Bern for a great experience
Sports—examples exist at all levels of competition from youth to adult. Sports activities are increasingly popular with women, men, children and seniors all across America

12. The Origins of the Leisure Class
In 1899 Thorenstein Veblen wrote a book called “The Theory of the Leisure Class”
Veblen described the leisure class as:
A group of people who had goods but did not have to work
First developed in barbarian culture
Superior to other classes
One meaning of the word leisure is in the sense of Veblen’s “leisure class.” In this sense, leisure class refers to those people who did not have to work (i.e., work being defined as anything involving hard labor and drudgery--not the fun, creative stuff. The Leisure Class were people who had the goods and money to support both their basic needs and lavish entertainments.
The concept of a Leisure Class has been around a long time. It first developed when societies transitioned from primitive, peaceful & simple to barbarism, predation, and warlike activities. In essence, those who “have a lot” have had no problem showing it throughout the history of human civilization.
Through competition for goods, there was a winner and a looser and hence a hierarchy for humans was established. Those who could strut their stuff were considered superior to other classes creating the standard for classism. Those in power have wielded it, throughout history, to try to maintain this status quo.
The leisure class often participated in education, war, and affairs of the state, but not laborious activities. The leisure class pursuits were seen as “better” and helped to establish the place and value of the leisure class as an economic factor of modern life.
Food for thought:
Can you think of examples of people who show off their expensive things in an effort to prove they are above someone else?
Do you believe that competition for money and goods today continues to result in a class-oriented society in the United States?
I don’t know what it’s like where you live, but a Google search I did turned up a “Daily Mail Online” article from December 12, 2011 that stated:
“Instead of mourning the demise of her latest TV venture, Paris Hilton spent the day doing what she does best – shopping. It emerged yesterday that the socialite's reality show, The World According to Paris, has been axed by the Oxygen network, but the news hasn't slowed down her spending habits. With a reported net worth of $45 million, Paris can afford to take some time off, so instead of job-hunting she put her credit card to work at the high end designer boutiques in Italy with sister Nicky and good friend, Black Eyed Peas singer Fergie.”

13. Ancient Greece: Plato
Plato’s teaching creates one foundation for examining meaning in leisure
A central role of education in Ancient Greece was to enlighten students as how much work was necessary, how to use free time, and its value to life.
Schole and Ascholia
The highest purpose of work was to escape into leisure
Believed the ultimate expression of humanity occurred in leisure
Plato explored the link between classical leisure and what it means to be human. Plato believed humans had inborn drives to play, to learn and to seek intrinsic satisfaction. Plato’s beliefs, and teaching style, which involved dialog with his students, creates one foundation for examining meaning in leisure.
According to Plato, a central role of education was to enlighten students as how much work was necessary, how to use free time, and its value to life. Plato believed the ultimate expression of humanity occurred in leisure. He believed people needed to learn that they should not work more than they had to, and once a person has worked enough (i.e., to meet one’s necessities) that people should stop working and engage in leisure.
To the Ancient Greeks, leisure was “non-work.” The word schole described this time in the Greek language. During schole a person was, in a sense, obligated to use his power of reason to pursue truth and self understanding. The word schole was also connected with choice and freedom. Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, and other Greek philosophers, all believed that educated people would enjoy learning so much that once they experienced it they would freely choose to continue thinking. Male Greek citizens were privileged to go to school (note the similarity to the word schole) and Greek Society freed the male citizens from work by having slaves and women do most of the work for them. In cases where they did have to work, the highest purpose of work was to escape into leisure.
The Greek word ascholia was the opposite of schole. Ascholia meant “having no leisure.” Slaves, women, and non-Greek citizens typically had lives of ascholia, or “no leisure,” because they were busy doing the labor needed to run the society.
The key thing to recognize is that what Plato would have called important was leisure, and the highest leisure was seeking knowledge. The less important activities, according to Plato, were labor, menial work (such as house keeping), and even making money. The work of merchants was considered to be less important than leisure because making money was not considered equal to time spent pursuing truth and understanding. Thus, the Greeks believed that the ultimate expression of humanity occurred during leisure. In fact, their beliefs about leisure allowed them the time to think about questions such as “What is a good life?” and “What is the best type of government?” Through the process of thinking, debate, trial and error, the Greeks created the foundation for Western Civilization and a model for the three branches of government that we call Democracy.
In today’s society, we would say the opposite of Plato’s intention --that work is the more important activity and leisure is the least important.

14. Ancient Greece: Aristotle
Leisure was activities performed for their own sake
The goodness of humans was found in their power to reason
There were some downsides to the ideal of Greek leisure
One of Plato’s students, Aristotle, added more dimensions to Plato’s thoughts on leisure.
Aristotle believed that leisure did not need to have a purpose, therefore the highest forms of leisure were those experiences that were performed purely for their own sake. This implies that any activity that had an end (or goal) would not be considered as leisure. Activities that fit with Aristotle’s views included learning, dialog, and writing or performing music and poetry. For example, Aristotle writes about a craftsman making a beautiful bridle for a horse. He acknowledged that this activity could be enjoyable for the craftsman, but since the bridle has a purpose (to be used on a horse), making a useful item would not be considered leisure.
Like Plato, Aristotle believed that leisure was freedom from having to be occupied with menial labor. Aristotle also believed that humans were unique among all life forms because of their power to reason. Therefore, a life devoted to contemplation and study was the most proper use of leisure because it was through contemplation that humans could exercise their highest and unique purpose.
There were some downsides to the ideal of Greek leisure:
Leisure was restricted to male Greek citizens, and
The labor of slaves, women and foreign merchants was what allowed the male Greek citizens to avoid work
Today we would likely say this classical leisure ideal is bad because it allowed a privileged, elite group to be supported by the labor of others. However, keep an open mind at this point, because you will learn more about social class, leisure, and possible ways you can synthesize views of classical leisure with the realities of leisure in today’s post-modern world.

15. Leisure in Ancient Rome
Leisure was non-work time
Leisure was a reward for hard work
Leisure and social control in Rome
Bread and Circuses
While Rome adopted many things from the Greek civilization, they had some different values with regards to leisure.
The main difference is that the Roman’s tended to view leisure more practically, and they believed that a person earned the right to leisure after a day (or lifetime) of work. This is more similar to the Puritan work ethic on which the United States was founded. First, we work hard, and then we give ourselves permission to play. Leisure is valued, at least in part, because it refreshes us for more work. Retirement was the promised reward for a lifetime of hard work.
As Rome grew in wealth, and there were large numbers of free, but poor, citizens known as Plebeians, the Romans began to use leisure as a form of social control. Gladiator fights in the coliseum were held for thousands of spectators and loaves of bread were thrown into the crowds to placate the hungry Plebians. This is now called “Bread and Circuses.” These events became increasingly bloody and violent as the aristocracy sought to keep a lid on political unrest. Some scholars believe that the misuse of free time was the undoing of Roman civilization.
Therefore, the Roman view of leisure is more like our view of modern leisure today because leisure occurred after work, and a person needed to work first in order to earn the reward of leisure.

16. Leisure in Contemporary Culture: Free Time
Time free from the obligations of work (subsistence) and existence (eating, sleeping, and so on).
Leisure is time free for making personal choices
Not all people who are free from work obligations have leisure
Free time can be regarded as privilege or as a chance to escape
While leisure has many different meanings in contemporary culture, free time is probably the most common interpretation of leisure for most Americans.
Leisure is time when we are not working and time free for making choices. Time we are working can be called time for existence, because we need money to live. However, one should also consider that not all non-work time is going to be leisure. Some of our non-work time is going to be used up on the activities related to existence, such as eating, sleeping, and so on. The remaining time free from work that most consider leisure is the time the they get to choose to do things they want to do.
Another example to consider is a person serving a prison sentence. The prisoner may have few obligations, but he or she does not have freedom. Therefore, free time can be considered necessary for leisure but not sufficient, since perceived freedom is also a requirement.
One advantage to the view that leisure is free time is that this definition allows researchers to determine how much leisure time people have.
However, this type of research can be problematic because individuals’ perceptions of their free time activities vary. If leisure is seen as a privilege, a person may be more likely to engage in worthwhile pursuits. In contrast, if a person sees leisure as an opportunity to escape, they may choose mindless activities (like watching too much TV) or even escape through the abuse of drugs and alcohol.

17. Leisure in Contemporary Culture: Activity
The view of many recreation professionals
Recreation and leisure are often used synonymously
Potential problem
Many recreation professionals see leisure as recreational activities (e.g. sports, games, drama, and so on).
One advantage to this view of leisure is that it allows researchers to compare activities between people and groups.
However, this definition becomes problematic when considering any given activity from the participant’s personal point of view. For example, golf would be leisure for some people, some of the time. If I choose to play golf on Saturday it’s leisure, but if I have to attend a golf tournament on Friday evening for my job, it may not be leisure. This makes it difficult to for researchers to quantify how much leisure a person has if they just count time spent in recreational activities.

18. Leisure in Contemporary Culture: State of Mind
Leisure is defined by the meaning it holds for the individual, by the individual, from his or her own point of view
Self-expression, self-achievement, and self-actualization
Leisure as a state of mind adds another useful dimension for describing the modern leisure experience.
If leisure is defined in accordance with an individual’s state of mind, researchers can ask about feelings like intrinsic satisfaction and freedom.
If one views leisure as a state of mind, it is not going to be entirely dependent on the activity. The only activities that would be leisure are those that the person choose to do and enjoyed doing. Thus, leisure is not dependent on activity, but rather, it is defined by the meaning it holds for the individual.
The leisure as a state of mind perspective is associated with leisure experiences that allow for self-expression, self-achievement, and self-actualization.
One advantage to this view of leisure is that it allows researchers to better understand individuals’ perspectives. However, this definition becomes problematic when considering how complicated it is to gather this type of information.

19. So …What is leisure?
No one single memorizable, right-answer definition of leisure
Complex
Make conscious decisions to achieve optimal meaning
So … you might ask, what is leisure? As stated at the start of Unit 1, there is no one definition of leisure. It’s more complex than most people first believe.
By examining many possible meanings and dimensions of leisure, you can learn to make conscious decisions about how you can use leisure to achieve optimal meaning in your life.
Ultimately, this is the main purpose of this course.