Literary studies and human flourishing / edited by James F. English and Heather Love.

Format
Book
Language
English
Published/​Created
New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2023]
Description
xxvii, 230 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm.

Details

Subject(s)
Editor
Series
The humanities and human flourishing
Summary note
"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"-- Provided by publisher.
Bibliographic references
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN
  • 9780197637234 (paperback)
  • 019763723X (paperback)
  • 9780197637227 (hardcover)
  • 0197637221 (hardcover)
LCCN
2022029587
OCLC
1341844710
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