Critical Perspectives in Happiness Research

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiv

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2. The Return to Happiness

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

      PDF

   2. Overview of Happiness Research

      • Luka Zevnik

      Pages 3-11

   3. Happiness, Culture and Relations of Power

      • Luka Zevnik

      Pages 13-34

   4. The Return to Happiness: A New Interdisciplinary Approach to Happiness Research

      • Luka Zevnik

      Pages 35-61

3. The Birth of Happiness

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 63-63

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   2. Middle Ages: The Time Before Happiness

      • Luka Zevnik

      Pages 65-75

   3. The Origins of Happiness in Renaissance and Reformation

      • Luka Zevnik

      Pages 77-94

   4. The Birth of Modern Happiness

      • Luka Zevnik

      Pages 95-134

   5. The Evolution of Happiness: Development of Happiness from its Birth to its Contemporary Manifestations

      • Luka Zevnik

      Pages 135-142

   6. Conclusion: Modernization as the Collective Pursuit of Happiness

      • Luka Zevnik

      Pages 143-148

4. Back Matter

   Pages 149-158

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This book presents an interdisciplinary exploration of the origins of happiness in the modern Western culture and makes the argument that happiness is not universal but is instead a culturally and historically specific experience, characteristic only to the Western world. It begins with an overview of the main research approaches to happiness and then studies the important but elusive theme in the context of culture and relations of power. The second part of the book analyses the social, religious, ethical and political processes that lead to the emergence of the experience of happiness, including consumer culture in contemporary societies. It presents an analysis of the medieval Christian experience which concludes that the modern experience of happiness only emerged in the 17th and 18th century, when the ideal of human existence increasingly started to be pursued in the present life. In its conclusion, this book explores the concept of modernization as the collective pursuit of happiness.  

• Anthropology of Well-Being
• Art of Living
• Basic Parameters of Happiness
• Critical History of Happiness
• Cultural Construction of Happiness
• Cultural Neuroscience
• Culture and Relations
• Empirical Happiness Research
• Ethnocentrism and Happiness
• Eudaimonic Well-Being
• Foucault and Happiness
• Happiness Studies and Life Satisfaction
• Happiness and Consumer Culture
• Happiness and Culture
• Happiness and Medieval Theology
• Happiness and Pastoral Power
• Interdisciplinary Approach to the Study of Happiness
• Middle Ages and Happiness
• Neoroscience of Happiness
• Origins of Happiness in the Western Culture
• Positive Timeless Universal Experience
• Public and Communal Happiness
• Pursuit of Happiness
• Sin and Salvation
• The Birth of Modern Happiness
• Understanding of Happiness

• University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia

  Luka Zevnik

Dr. Luka Zevnik is assistant professor at University of Ljubljana. He is interdisciplinary oriented and has presented conference papers and published on happiness and emotions, popular culture, consumer culture, experience, cultural studies and neuroscience.

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