Benjamin Kline Hunnicutt

Bio: Benjamin Kline Hunnicutt, PhD, is a historian. He has been a professor at the University of Iowa since 1975. For most of his academic career, he has focused his research and writing on the historical mystery: "the end of shorter hours.” With writers such as Joseph Pieper and Hannah Arendt, he has also explored the “rise of the world of total work”— the unique modern glorification of work as a crypto-religion. He is the author of numerous articles, book chapters, and books, several books, including Work Without End: Abandoning Shorter Hours for the Right to Work (1987, NY Times book Review), Kellogg's Six-Hour Day (1995, NY Times book review) Free Time: The Forgotten American Dream (2013, short review, NY Times), The Age of Experiences: Harnessing happiness to the New Economy (2020).

Hunnicutt is a member of the Academy of Leisure Sciences and past co-director of the Society for the Reduction of Human Labor. Professor Hunnicutt received his MA and PhD in American History from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He has served as chair of Leisure Studies and head of the Division of Physical Education at the University of Iowa. He has worked as a consultant to unions and businesses interested in shorter work hours and the potential of leisure to improve the community and workplace.

Hunnicutt has written for The Wall Street Journal, Politico, Salon, and the Huffington Press, and appeared in a variety of nationally and internationally broadcast television and radio programs including: ABC News, NBC News, PBS, the Canadian and British Broadcasting Corporations, the Today Show, the Charlie Rose Show, and appeared in the PBS special, “Running Out of Time” and the German documentary, “Frohes Schaffen - Ein Film zur Senkung der Arbeitsmoral” (see appendix for a more complete list of media appearances).

Recent international interest in alternative work schedules (4 day, and thirty hour weeks), has renewed and broadened interest in his work —see his Solon Ĵarticle.

Currently, he is working on a two volume history of work, tentatively entitled: The Rise and Fall of Work (the second volume subtitled, Saving Work, A Failing Faith) and a trade, self-help book, After the Pandemic: What to Buy to Make You REALLY Happy, And Then Some/ A Guide to the Experience and Transformation Economies

Having just published The Age of Experiences, with Temple Press (a scholarly work), he has a follow-up trade book in the works. There is a lot of interest around in the experience economy (- travel, tourism, Disney World, etc, - all in bad shape now). He established the scholarly groundwork, citing the relevant research in psychology, economics, and neurobiology, in The Age of Experience. He will build the trade book on that book’s solid foundation, applying the research and scientific findings to the marketplace to write a non-academic, user-friendly consumer guide.