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<p class="MsoNormal">Comfort and Contemporary Culture: The problems of the ‘good life’ on an increasingly uncomfortable planet<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Andrew Hickey<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>University of Southern Queensland, Australia<o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p style="margin-top:0cm;text-align:justify;background:white"><span style="color:#212529">To <i>be</i> comfortable stands as an aspiration of the times; to <i>be</i> comfortable defines what it means to live ‘the good life’. We talk about such things as maintaining
a <i>comfortable</i> home, a <i>comfortable</i> lifestyle and a <i>comfortable</i> retirement. We seek out comforts in the relationships we sustain, the leisure practices we enact and the possessions we accumulate. We look for promises of comfort in the words
of a close friend and our next pair of shoes. Furnished in the home, optionally outfitted in cars, scrutinised in holiday brochures and brushed up against in the clothes we wear, comfort is there, marking distinctions and framing decisions about what it means
to live <i>well</i>. But by consuming comfort in the ways that we do, we do ourselves harm and limit our only planet of its capacity to provide for the requirements of life. This is a world that grows ever more uncomfortable <i>because</i> of comfort and when
linked to consumption and excess, indulgence and apathy, it occurs that comfort carries effects that have existential consequence.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-top:0cm;text-align:justify;background:white;box-sizing: border-box;margin-bottom:1rem;font-variant-ligatures: normal;font-variant-caps: normal;orphans: 2;widows: 2;-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;text-decoration-thickness: initial;text-decoration-style: initial;text-decoration-color: initial;word-spacing:0px">
<span style="color:#212529">Utilising analyses of popular culture and ethnographic accounts of everyday life, <i>Comfort and Contemporary Culture</i> works through case study accounts of comfort’s enactment to pose questions around what it means to live, now. <i>Comfort
and Contemporary Culture</i> poses alternative renderings of the idea of comfort to return the concept to its earliest roots in notions of <i>confortâre</i>. The revisioning of what we take as comfort requires urgent attention, with the ecological, social
and intrapersonal implications of comfort’s current excesses demonstrative of this need.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="margin-top:0cm;text-align:justify;background:white"><span style="color:#212529"><a href="https://www.routledge.com/Comfort-and-Contemporary-Culture-The-problems-of-the-good-life-on/Hickey/p/book/9781032536538">https://www.routledge.com/Comfort-and-Contemporary-Culture-The-problems-of-the-good-life-on/Hickey/p/book/9781032536538</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:#221F1F;mso-fareast-language:EN-AU">=========================================================<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:8.0pt;color:#221F1F;mso-fareast-language:EN-AU"><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:#221F1F;mso-fareast-language:EN-AU">Professor Laurie Johnson
</span></b><i><span style="font-size:8.0pt;color:#221F1F;mso-fareast-language:EN-AU">FSA FRHistS PhD MA BAHon BA DipT</span></i><b><span style="font-size:8.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:2.15pt"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:#221F1F;mso-fareast-language:EN-AU">English and Cultural Studies | School of Humanities and Communication | Q208B<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:2.15pt"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:#221F1F;mso-fareast-language:EN-AU">President, Australian and New Zealand Shakespeare Association<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:2.15pt"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:#221F1F;mso-fareast-language:EN-AU">Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (London)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:2.15pt"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:#221F1F;mso-fareast-language:EN-AU">Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (UK)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:2.15pt"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:#221F1F;mso-fareast-language:EN-AU">Chair, The Bruce Dawe National Poetry Prize<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:2.15pt"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:#221F1F;mso-fareast-language:EN-AU">Twitter: @LostPlayhouse</span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:8.2pt;line-height:10.85pt;mso-line-height-rule:exactly">
<span style="font-size:9.0pt;color:#76848F;mso-fareast-language:EN-AU">Ph: +61 7 4631 1739 | M: +61 413 303 904 | Fax: +61 4631 5597</span><span style="font-size:9.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:10.85pt;mso-line-height-rule:exactly"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;color:#76848F;mso-fareast-language:EN-AU">E:
</span><span style="font-size:9.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-AU"><a href="mailto:Laurie.Johnson@unisq.edu.au"><span style="color:blue">Laurie.Johnson@unisq.edu.au</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:5.9pt;line-height:10.95pt;mso-line-height-rule:exactly">
<span style="font-size:9.0pt;color:#76848F;mso-fareast-language:EN-AU">School of Humanities and Communication | Faculty of Business, Education, Law and Arts</span><span style="font-size:9.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;color:#76848F;mso-fareast-language:EN-AU">University of Southern Queensland |
<span style="letter-spacing:-.15pt">Toowoomba, </span>Queensland | 4350 |<span style="letter-spacing:-1.45pt">
</span>Australia</span><span style="font-size:9.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-AU"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-AU">I acknowledge the Giabal and Jarowair peoples on whose unceded lands I live and work, and pay my deepest respects to First Nations Elders past, present, and emerging.
<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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