Category: Uncategorized
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Papers Presented at the 2025 Conference
The Girlsboss’s Guide to Happiness Urban (Un)Happiness and the Visual Rhetoric of Maps Play, Happiness, and Their Dark Sides: Critical Exploration The World Happiness Report and the American Wellbeing
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The World Happiness Report and the American Wellbeing
by Vida Penezic Abstract In an attempt to move the conversation about happiness from the focus on the individual onto the happiness of groups, including the socioeconomic and cultural conditions that contribute to it, this paper examines American happiness in the context of the World Happiness Report. Every March, the UN publishes a report that…
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Play, Happiness, and Their Dark Sides: Critical Exploration
By Sandra Chang-Kredl Abstract This paper addresses play through the lens of critical happiness studies, exploring intersections between theories of play and happiness, and the often-overlooked tensions and ‘shadows’ they entail. Developmental psychology often instrumentalizes play as a technique for children’s learning and growth, framing it as a means of maximizing their potential to become…
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Urban (Un)Happiness and the Visual Rhetoric of Maps
By Stephanie Byttebier Abstract As Charles Montgomery points out in his book Happy City, the life and design of cities, since their earliest existence, have been intricately connected with the search for human happiness–what it means, what it looks like, how we can build the idea of happiness for society. The goal of much urban…
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The Girlsboss’s Guide to Happiness
By Ryanne Kap Abstract It’s a trope as old as time: a career-driven woman finds happiness and self-actualization by choosing her love life over her work life. Romantic comedies such as The Devil Wears Prada (2006) and The Proposal (2009) depict women at the height of their careers as cold and joyless; their success in…
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Human Desire for Happiness Meets Market Economy: The Rise of the New Happiness Industry
By Vida Penezic Abstract Sciences that study happiness agree on the following: a. To be happy we need both positive emotions and a feeling that, overall, our life has a purpose; b. Different people find pleasure and purpose in different things; and c. Once the basic needs are met, most of us can learn how…
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Got Happiness? How the Dairy Industry Uses Happy People and Happy Cows to Sell Milk.
By Anthony Sloan Abstract: For centuries milk has been promoted as a “superfood” and associated with wellbeing and happiness. In the popular imagination (especially in advertising), milk appears in the context of family life, parental love, Santa Claus, good health, beauty, and “the simple life” on a farm close to nature. All these cultural tropes…
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Papers Presented at the 2024 Conference
Have Controller Will Travel: How Traveling to Share My Hobby Brings Happiness, by Ed Shorer Money, Friends, Community, and Culture: Transformation of a Kazakhstani Comedy Character into a Happy Person, by Natalya Vodopyanova Got Milk? How Dairy Industry Uses Happy People and Happy Cows to Sell Milk, by Antony Sloan Human Desire for Happiness Meets Market Economy:…
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Have Controller Will Travel: How Traveling to Share My Hobby Brings Happiness
By Ed Shorer Abstract One of the main claims of many contemporary happiness theories is that if you want to be happy, you must invest in experiences, not in possessions. In my presentation, I use my own example to illustrate how experiences contribute to subjective wellbeing. I travel to share my hobby, Slot Car Racing,…
Happiness and Culture 