In 2023, the interdisciplinary anthology Hedonistic Asceticism. Renegotiations of Meaning and Consumption in the 21st Century was published by Wehrhahn-Verlag Hannover. The subject of the volume was current neo-ascetic practices and trends that, in the spirit of an ethic of renouncing external goals such as success, career and material prosperity, consciously say goodbye to them, but at the same time also offer the prospect of new and, above all, more meaningful and ecologically compatible forms of pleasure and enjoyment. In the scientific examination of trends and practices such as yoga, forest bathing, escaping the city, minimalism or digital detox, models of a new eudaemonistic way of life became visible, which, beyond the commodity worlds of consumption and entertainment, are primarily aimed at expanding inner spaces and regaining existential meaning, but always run the risk of being fed back into the capitalist system of growth and profit maximization.
It can currently be observed that, against the backdrop of the multi-crises of our time, neo-ascetic trends and practices are becoming increasingly differentiated and are finding increasing numbers of followers, especially through their dissemination via social media. In view of these developments and encouraged by the success of the first volume, which was publicly presented at a discussion event organized by the Heinrich Böll Foundation in March 2024, the editors are planning a follow-up volume that will shed light on further such new and resistant existential practices in their (psycho-)social, cultural, economic and aesthetic aspects and at the same time place them within a larger theoretical and contemporary diagnostic horizon.
We look forward to academic contributions and essays from various academic disciplines on the following trends and practices, among others:
Degrowth; species justice/Planthropocene; nutritional trends/veganism; new ways of working/downshifting; tiny house movement; new models of self-sufficiency and exchange culture (transition towns); downsizing/tidying up; New Gardening; Pilgrimage; Dropping out and system criticism in film, art and literature.
Abstracts of approx. 300 words (+ brief biographical information) can be submitted to the editors by July 31, 2024. The planned anthology is expected to be published by Wehrhahn-Verlag in autumn 2025.