Brett Lashua

Diana C. Parry

Corey W. Johnson

As the world grapples with the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, on almost every news website, across social media, as well as in its (many) absences, leisure has taken on new significance in both managing and negotiating a global crisis. Leisure in the Time of Coronavirus: A Rapid Response, amidst the disruption, inconvenience, illness, fear, uncertainty, tragedy, and loss from COVID-19, generates discussions that enable leisure scholars to learn and to engage with wider debates about the crucial role of leisure in people’s lives. The pandemic has brought tourism to a standstill with borders closed and travel restricted. From home (for those fortunate enough to have them), in physical isolation, and in attempts to socialize, at no time in recent memory has leisure seemed so vital, and yet also so hauntingly absent. Leisure, therefore, remains an important lens through which to view, question, and understand the world. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal, Leisure Sciences.

A Rapid Response

Leisure in the Time of Coronavirus

Simon Baker

Troy D. Glover

This book centralizes powerful leisure stories that may otherwise be understood as myths—sometimes recognized, often less so—that circulate in the field of leisure studies and beyond. In everyday use, a myth perpetuates a popularly held belief that is false or untrue. However, in social and cultural theories, myths are more complex as partial truths that privilege particular versions of a shared social reality. We see myth as having an “absent presence” in leisure studies, and want to know what myths are, what they do, and how they circulate and shape people’s leisure lives. Myths can do more than obfuscate; they often animate people’s lives, motivate collective action, and inspire change. As the chapters in this edited volume explore in further detail, leisure myths and mythmaking involve complex relations in the gaps between reality and imagination—from the shared myths of musical legends to myths of placemaking and communities, as well as from origin myths of sport practices to fantasy and festivals, to the importance of storytelling as mythmaking in tourism. In different ways, each of these chapters alerts the readers to the “absent presence” of myths and mythmaking in leisure research. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Leisure Sciences.

Leisure Myths and Mythmaking

Karl Spracklen

Erin Sharpe

Spencer Swain

This is the first handbook devoted entirely to leisure theory, charting the history and philosophy of leisure, theories in religion and culture, and rational theories of leisure in the Western philosophical tradition, as well as a range of socio-cultural theories from thinkers such as Adorno, Bauman, Weber and Marx. Drawing on contributions from experts in leisure studies from around the world, the four sections cover: traditional theories of leisure; rational theories of leisure; structural theories of leisure; and post-structural theories of leisure. The Palgrave Handbook of Leisure Theory is essential reading for students and scholars working in leisure studies, social theory as well as those working on the problem of leisure in the wider humanities and social sciences.

The Palgrave Handbook of Leisure Theory

Stephen Wagg

M. Selim Yavuz

This book draws from a rich history of scholarship about the relations between music and cities, and the global flows between music and urban experience. The contributions in this collection comment on the global city as a nexus of moving people, changing places, and shifting social relations, asking what popular music can tell us about cities, and vice versa. Since the publication of the first Sounds and the City volume, various movements, changes and shifts have amplified debates about globalization. From the waves of people migrating to Europe from the Syrian civil war and other conflict zones, to the 2016 “Brexit” vote to leave the European Union and American presidential election of Donald Trump. These, and other events, appear to have exposed an anti-globalist retreat toward isolationism and a backlash against multiculturalism that has been termed “post-globalization.” Amidst this, what of popular music? Does music offer renewed spaces and avenues for public protest, for collective action and resistance? What can the diverse​​ histories, hybridities, and legacies of popular music tell us about the ever-changing relations of people and cities?

Volume 2

Sounds and the City

Brett Lashua

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