[Laura E. Savu]

Dear colleagues,

I’m writing to invite you to submit proposals for a collection of essays that is tentatively titled The Good Life and the Greater Good in a Global Context. The essays need to focus on the discourses and practices of the good life, understood in all of its dimensions—material, psychological, ethical, spiritual, etc. –and approached from historical, literary, and cultural perspectives. One of the main goals of the study is to test the truth and tease out the implications of a statement made by the father-son team of economists Robert and Edward Skidelsky in their 2013 book How Much Is Enough? Money and the Good Life: “We have, then, the materials for a universal inquiry into the good life, transcending limits of time and place. We are not doomed to a chauvinistic ‘clash of civilizations,’ mediated only by the rules of the market or by international treaties” (147). A related goal is to analyze how writers and artists have envisioned “the good society, a society hospitable to the humanity of its members” (Bauman, Liquid Times 107).

Please take a look at the brief description of the rationale and the research questions below. Feel free to add any other comments and questions and let me know if you are interested in contributing and/or co-editing such a study with me. My own essay examines the transnational foundations of “that moral-intimate-economic thing called ‘the good life’” (Berlant 2) as theorized by cultural critic Lauren Berlant and imagined by Pakistani novelist Mohsin Hamid in his latest novel, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia (2012).

A potential publisher for the collection is Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Thank you, and I look forward to hearing from you.

Laura

Topic Proposal

“The world is turning from a victimology, apology-oriented view of human nature . . . to aspirations about well-being and about flourishing,” University of Pennsylvania psychologist Martin E.P. Seligman said in a talk at APA’s 2011 Annual Convention. “It’s in our hands,” he added, “not only to witness this, but to take part in making this happen.” But what exactly constitutes human flourishing? And under what conditions can the good life–indeed, the greater good–be achieved if our world continues to be fragmented and atomized, ravaged by violent conflicts, scarred by deepening socio-economic inequalities, and threatened by ecological disasters? The urgency of these questions is borne out by recent scholarship and curricular trends—from numerous books that tap into the ancient wisdom about the art of living to dozens of college -level courses designed to help the “Selfie” generation “recognize, realize, and maximize” the good life (Berrett). The problem, pointed out by Zygmunt Bauman, among others, is that

Among the questions that could be considered are: What is “the good life”? How has it been conceptualized and/or imagined over time? What set of values distinguishes the modern version of the good life from the ancient version(s)? What choices, commitments, and challenges does the good life involve? Is there a universal formula for the good life? What is the relationship between the good life and “the greater good?” How are both shaped by relations of power, different ideologies, and moral visions? In what ways does globalization impact the achievement of the good life? How has the good life been represented in literature, the arts, and the media?

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