Otium

With leisure is defined as the time that a person can use for customization (for example, to relax ). Not all leisure is simultaneously also leisure, as many leisure activities are determined indirectly by foreign interests. The original meaning of the word ( Old High German " muoza ", Middle High German " muoze " ) was opportunity, possibility.

Antiquity

Middle Ages to today

While the thinkers of antiquity, leisure with their character-building and creative opportunities for valuable thought - the art of living as the opposite to the slaves -, acedia was (mostly with " inertia " translated) one of the seven capital vices in European monasticism. Protestantism has professional and work held high and against any idleness turned ( " Idleness is the root of all evil "). The Protestant Ethic has become so according to Max Weber in a substantial basis of early capitalism. Their influence waned with the commercialization of leisure.

Today is mainly emphasized to indulge in leisure for health promotion, in the sense of recovery ( neudeutsch " chill " ), by means of meditation, with additional Quality time, as part of the wellness movement or by practicing a simpler lifestyle.

The leisure is the subject of research for several decades. The literary scholar Gisela Dischner has been working for more than 30 years with the " theory of idleness " ( "free conscious activity "); several books written by her (including " Dictionary of the loafer " (2009), "Love and Idleness " (2011) ) have been published. The journalist, who initiated the project " leisure - art", Gerlinde Knaus, examined in 2002 in her thesis " leisure - a male prerogative? The theory of idleness: The Dream of subversives in Education " ( Educational Sciences at the Karl -Franzens -Universität Graz ) based on the " theory of idleness " by Gisela Dischner the " female idleness ". Knaus developed on these theoretical foundations, a seminar entitled " leisure - Art ", which is specifically aimed at women and has frequently been implemented in the education St. Virgil Salzburg to multi-day seminars, practical and experimentally (2005-2009). Since 2013, at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau, a DFG -funded collaborative research center on " leisure. Concepts, spaces, characters " set, which ( for example, the German literature, philosophy, theology, psychology, medicine, or literature ) to work up the phenomenon of leisure from different perspectives.