Cultures of Euphoria: a one day workshop on joy

A one-day hybrid workshop to interrogate the relationship between joy, mental health, and well-being through ethnographic case studies in cross-cultural perspective.

Focusing on joy has important implications for how we think about mental health. Rather than concentrating on social problems and pathologies, an analytic and ethnographic focus on joy enables us to interrogate what it means to live well with others. This is important because, by taking seriously those joyous experiences that affirm people’s place in the world and connection to others, we can reframe our conception of mental health from the alleviation of pathology to the cultivation of health and flourishing, reflecting the turn towards preventative healthcare more broadly. Approaching mental health through an analytic focus on joy, rather than pathology, offers a ground project for insight into purpose, human connection, and self-transcendence.

Psychological studies of joy have consistently found that experiencing joy is linked to positive outcomes, such as better physical health, improved social relationships, and higher life satisfaction. They have shown that individuals who experience more joy tend to be more resilient in the face of adversity and are better able to cope with stressful situations. Despite this, there is no qualitative cross-cultural comparative research on joy and mental health, and psychologists identify this lack as a major lacuna in scholarship. The CoE meeting will compare culturally diverse ethnographic cases of joy and wellbeing.

Convenors:
Dr Joanna Cook (UCL)
Professor Tanya Luhrmann (Stanford)

Speakers:
Dr Joshua Brahinski (Berkley)
Dr Ashley Cocksworth (Roehampton)
Dr Annelie Drakman (Stockholm)
Dr Jo Krishnakumar (SOAS)
Professor Adam Potkay (William & Mary)
Dr Hikari Sandhu (Tokyo)
Dr Matan Shapiro (KCL)
Dr Benjamin Theobald (UCL)
Dr Daniel White (Cambridge)