Sloth Is a Subject That Brings Together Busy Minds

Hard-working scholars are gathering to discuss an unusual academic subject: sloth.

They will meet Saturday at Cooper Union to explore various perspectives and speak "in defense" of a subject whose history dates back centuries. "Sloth has an enormous pedigree as one of the seven sins," the editor in chief of Cabinet magazine, Sina Najafi, said.

Friday evening in Chelsea, the colloquium on couch potatoes gets under way with a film introduction to two-toed sloths. Musician Brian Dewan will perform songs such as Irving Berlin's "Oh, how I hate to get up in the morning."

Also on the schedule: A historian of architecture and urbanism at Columbia University, Felicity Scott, will talk about dome-building communes and the refusal to work. A professor at Brown University, Pierre Saint-Amand, will discuss Jean-Jacques Rousseau and solitary walks. A professor at the University of Oregon, Daniel Rosenberg, will speak on nineteenth-century children's books that aimed to instill industriousness in young readers.

One who is unlikely to attend is the co-editor and publisher of the New Criterion, Roger Kimball. He cited Kingsley Amis's novel "Lucky Jim," whose "protagonist reflects sourly on his own academic hack work and 'the pseudo-light it threw upon non-problems.'" Mr. Kimball said sponsors of this conference "would seem to have out Amised Amis."

In the summer issue of the journal Raritan, Terry Eagleton, a literary critic on the left, appears to be prescient about just such a conference topic. The chairman of humanities at the New School, Noah Isenberg, quotes him writing that taking "literally the wise old adage that study should be fun" was "rather like writing your Master's thesis in the comparative flavor of malt whiskies, or on the phenomenology of lying in bed all day." Mr. Eagleton further wrote: "In the old days, rock music was a distraction from your studies; now it may be what you are studying."

An editor of Cabinet, Brian Dillon, said the magazine excelled at finding subjects that had a "kind of buried history" in art, literature, or culture. Mr. Najafi said that despite a bit of snickering it might provoke, the subject of sloth was not to be derided. Philosopher Søren Kierkegaard called idleness "the only true good," and Bertrand Russell in 1932 wrote its praises in Harper's.

In allowing reflection, laziness "can be an intensely philosophical state," a professor at Bard College, Marina van Zuylen, said. She said iPods, BlackBerries, and instant-messaging are increasingly filling up free moments. There is beauty, Ms. van Zuylen said, in the ability to let time develop outside a goal-oriented activity.

Mr. Najafi described being at a dinner party where everyone expressed surprise when someone spoke of sleeping eight hours a day. Mr. Najafi said New York is the "epicenter" of the view that time is money.

Some urbanites long for idleness. The small press buyer at St. Mark's bookshop in Manhattan's East Village, Margarita Shalina, said works by beat writers like Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs "turn over very, very quickly."

Being a slacker can even have advantages. Mr. Dillon will speak on hypochondria as a means of organizing one's time. He said Charles Darwin's illness, apparent or real, kept people away and allowed him to get more work done. People can "give the appearance of sloth while actually being extremely industrious and productive," he said.

One irony is that many at the sloth conference appear quite industrious. "I am all for idleness, though I am very busy myself," said a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Jean-Michel Rabaté, who is speaking on playwright Samuel Beckett's interest in Belacqua, a lazy character in Dante's "Purgatorio." Ms. Van Zuylen said she was terrible at leisure. She said on trips her husband packs emergency reading material so she would not be without a book.

Cabinet is collaborating on the conference with the Philadelphia-based Slought Foundation.