Literary Studies and Human Flourishing

Literary Studies and Human Flourishing
Author: James F. English
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2023
Genre: Conduct of life
ISBN: 0197637221

"Of all humanities disciplines, none is more resistant to the program of positive psychology or more hostile to the prevailing discourse of human flourishing than literary studies. The approach taken in this volume of essays is neither to gloss over that antagonism nor to launch a series of blasts against positive psychology and the happiness industry. Rather, the essays are attempts to reflect on how the kinds of literary research the contributors themselves are doing, the kinds of work to which they are personally committed, might become part of an interdisciplinary conversation about human flourishing. The authors' specific fields of work are wide ranging, covering literary aesthetics, book history, digital humanities, and reader reception, as well as the important "inter-disciplines" of gender and sexuality studies, disability studies, and black studies-fields in which issues of stigma and exclusion are paramount, and which have critiqued the discourse of human flourishing for its failure to grapple with structural inequality and human difference. Taken together, the essays contribute more points of ambiguity and hesitation to the study of human flourishing than decisive advancements. Literary scholars are drawn more readily to the problematic than to the decidable. But by dwelling on the trouble spots in a field of inquiry still largely confined to the sciences, this volume provides the groundwork for new and more productive forms of interdisciplinary collaboration and exchange"--

The Oxford Handbook of the Positive Humanities

The Oxford Handbook of the Positive Humanities
Author: Louis Tay
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 577
Release: 2022-01-25
Genre: Art
ISBN: 0190064579

This text reviews and synthesizes the theories, research, and empirical evidence between human flourishing and the humanities broadly, including history, literary studies, philosophy, religious studies, music, art, theatre, and film. Via multidisciplinary essays, this book expands our understanding of how the humanities contribute to the theory and science of well-being by considering historical trends, conceptual ideas, and wide-ranging interdisciplinary drivers between positive psychology and the arts.

The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing

The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing
Author: Jonathan T. Pennington
Publisher: Baker Academic
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2017-06-20
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1493406639

The Sermon on the Mount, one of the most influential portions of the Bible, is the most studied and commented upon portion of the Christian Scriptures. Every Christian generation turns to it for insight and guidance. In this volume, a recognized expert on the Gospels shows that the Sermon on the Mount offers a clear window into understanding God's work in Christ. Jonathan Pennington provides a historical, theological, and literary commentary on the Sermon and explains how this text offers insight into God's plan for human flourishing. As Pennington explores the literary dimensions and theological themes of this famous passage, he situates the Sermon in dialogue with the Jewish and Greek virtue traditions and the philosophical-theological question of human flourishing. He also relates the Sermon's theological themes to contemporary issues such as ethics, philosophy, and economics.

Ecologies of Human Flourishing

Ecologies of Human Flourishing
Author: Donald K. Swearer
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2011
Genre: Caring
ISBN: 9780945454458

Rethinking the Human, J. Michelle Molina and Donald K. Swearer, eds. Studies in World Religions Series.

On Human Flourishing

On Human Flourishing
Author: D.J. Moores
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 309
Release: 2015-09-15
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1476621357

Great literature is more often praised for compelling depictions of conflict and tragedy than for moving portrayals of happiness and well-being. This collection of verse brings together poems of felicity, capturing what it means to be well in the fullest sense. Presented in 14 thematic sections, these works offer inspiring readings on wisdom, self-love, ecstasy, growth, righteousness, love and lust, inspiration, oneness with nature, hope, irreverence, awe, the delights of the senses, gratitude and compassion, relation to the sacred, justice, and unity. At times elegant, at others blunt, these poems reflect on what it means to live a rich, fulfilling life.

Mathematics for Human Flourishing

Mathematics for Human Flourishing
Author: Francis Su
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 287
Release: 2020-01-07
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 0300237138

"The ancient Greeks argued that the best life was filled with beauty, truth, justice, play and love. The mathematician Francis Su knows just where to find them."--Kevin Hartnett, Quanta Magazine" This is perhaps the most important mathematics book of our time. Francis Su shows mathematics is an experience of the mind and, most important, of the heart."--James Tanton, Global Math Project For mathematician Francis Su, a society without mathematical affection is like a city without concerts, parks, or museums. To miss out on mathematics is to live without experiencing some of humanity's most beautiful ideas. In this profound book, written for a wide audience but especially for those disenchanted by their past experiences, an award-winning mathematician and educator weaves parables, puzzles, and personal reflections to show how mathematics meets basic human desires--such as for play, beauty, freedom, justice, and love--and cultivates virtues essential for human flourishing. These desires and virtues, and the stories told here, reveal how mathematics is intimately tied to being human. Some lessons emerge from those who have struggled, including philosopher Simone Weil, whose own mathematical contributions were overshadowed by her brother's, and Christopher Jackson, who discovered mathematics as an inmate in a federal prison. Christopher's letters to the author appear throughout the book and show how this intellectual pursuit can--and must--be open to all.

Sculpting the Self

Sculpting the Self
Author: Muhammad Umar Faruque
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2021-08-17
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0472132628

Sculpting the Self addresses “what it means to be human” in a secular, post-Enlightenment world by exploring notions of self and subjectivity in Islamic and non-Islamic philosophical and mystical thought. Alongside detailed analyses of three major Islamic thinkers (Mullā Ṣadrā, Shāh Walī Allāh, and Muhammad Iqbal), this study also situates their writings on selfhood within the wider constellation of related discussions in late modern and contemporary thought, engaging the seminal theoretical insights on the self by William James, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Michel Foucault. This allows the book to develop its inquiry within a spectrum theory of selfhood, incorporating bio-physiological, socio-cultural, and ethico-spiritual modes of discourse and meaning-construction. Weaving together insights from several disciplines such as religious studies, philosophy, anthropology, critical theory, and neuroscience, and arguing against views that narrowly restrict the self to a set of cognitive functions and abilities, this study proposes a multidimensional account of the self that offers new options for addressing central issues in the contemporary world, including spirituality, human flourishing, and meaning in life. This is the first book-length treatment of selfhood in Islamic thought that draws on a wealth of primary source texts in Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Greek, and other languages. Muhammad U. Faruque’s interdisciplinary approach makes a significant contribution to the growing field of cross-cultural dialogue, as it opens up the way for engaging premodern and modern Islamic sources from a contemporary perspective by going beyond the exegesis of historical materials. He initiates a critical conversation between new insights into human nature as developed in neuroscience and modern philosophical literature and millennia-old Islamic perspectives on the self, consciousness, and human flourishing as developed in Islamic philosophical, mystical, and literary traditions.

Music and Human Flourishing

Music and Human Flourishing
Author: Anna Harwell Celenza
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2023-05-05
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0197646743

It has long been accepted that participating in music, either as a performer, listener, or composer, can contribute to human happiness and well-being. This volume, part of The Humanities and Human Flourishing series, explores a fourth musical activity--the act of music scholarship--and reveals how engagement with the cultural, social, and political practices surrounding music contributes to human flourishing in a way that listening, performing, and even composing alone cannot. Music and Human Flourishing contains essays by eleven prominent scholars representing the fields of musicology, ethnomusicology, and music theory. The essays are divided into three general categories and cover a broad range of topics and music traditions. In Part I, Contemplation, contributors explore a specific facet of music's connection to human flourishing and contemplate new approaches for future action. Part II, Critique, contains essays that challenge past assumptions of the various roles of music in society and highlight the effects that unconscious bias and stereotyping have had on music's effectiveness to facilitate human flourishing. Part III, Communication, features essays that explore how ethnicity, gender, religion, and technology influence our ability to connect with others through music. Collectively, these essays demonstrate how the process of thinking and writing about music and human flourishing can lead to revelations about cultural identity, social rituals, political ideologies, and even spiritual transcendence.

Visual Arts and Human Flourishing

Visual Arts and Human Flourishing
Author: Professor Emerita Art History and Executive Director Emerita Usc Museums Selma Holo
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 263
Release: 2024
Genre: Art
ISBN: 0197748945

"In mid-December, 2018, a man stood before one of the most beloved paintings in Europe, Botticelli's The Birth of Venus, and had a heart attack (Henri Neuendorf,ArtNet News, December 19, 2018 https://news.artnet.com/art-world/heart-attack-botticelli-uffizi-1425448). Venus is that painting you're thinking of, the one with the shapely, wheat-haired woman standing in a seashell, with one hand covering her breasts and the other holding her long, golden locks in front of her groin. Floating above her right shoulder are two winged figures with their arms wrapped around each other, who blow air on her like distant kisses. On her left stands a woman (the Hora of Spring?) who holds what looks like a drape and gazes directly at our goddess, whose face, tilted just so, looks toward the viewer with a gentle yet mature glance, as if she was born knowing all one needs to know of love and seduction. Fortunately, the man whose heart failed while looking back at our all-knowing Venus survived, but he was not the first to collapse while viewing art in Florence, and no doubt he will not be the last. It has happened often enough that there is a medical term for the phenomenon named after the first notable man to succumb, "Stendhal Syndrome." Apparently the French author of On Love, a treatise on romantic passion, reported that he fell ill in 1817 after viewing too much Florentine art (Bamforth 945). Is it any wonder that Botticelli's winged figures hang on to each other so tightly? To be awestruck is to be in imminent danger"--

Flourishing

Flourishing
Author: Miroslav Volf
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 301
Release: 2016-01-12
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0300190557

More than almost anything else, globalization and the great world religions are shaping our lives, affecting everything from the public policies of political leaders and the economic decisions of industry bosses and employees, to university curricula, all the way to the inner longings of our hearts. Integral to both globalization and religions are compelling, overlapping, and sometimes competing visions of what it means to live well. In this perceptive, deeply personal, and beautifully written book, a leading theologian sheds light on how religions and globalization have historically interacted and argues for what their relationship ought to be. Recounting how these twinned forces have intersected in his own life, he shows how world religions, despite their malfunctions, remain one of our most potent sources of moral motivation and contain within them profoundly evocative accounts of human flourishing. Globalization should be judged by how well it serves us for living out our authentic humanity as envisioned within these traditions. Through renewal and reform, religions might, in turn, shape globalization so that can be about more than bread alone.