The dossier included in this edition of Electra looks at two concepts, idleness and leisure, the understanding of which has shifted and turned over their long history. We explore how leisure and idleness are seen today, in the awareness that the current meaning of these formerly opposing ideas cannot be properly understood without looking back to a time we have left behind and can only contemplate from afar. Once radically different from each other, these two concepts tend to overlap in modern society, with only a few slight differences: whilst leisure is understood as a break from our working schedule, idleness points to an existential condition or a psychological characteristic with negative connotations. The former dichotomy has dissolved and been transferred to another pair of ideas, much more relevant to us today: the relationship between work and leisure, the alternation between which underpins life in the society of work.