The Promise of Happiness

Informationen zum Autor Sara Ahmed Klappentext "At a time when happiness studies are all the rage and feminism is accused of destroying women's happiness, Sara Ahmed offers a bold critique of the consensus that happiness is an unconditional good. Her new book asks searching questions about the nature of the good life, making its case in a wonderfully pellucid prose. What a paradox that a defense of the kill-joy should be such a pleasure to read! This timely, original, and intellectually expansive book is sure to trigger a great deal of debate."--Rita Felski, University of Virginia Zusammenfassung This provocative cultural critique of the imperative to be happy draws on the work of feminist! black! and queer critics showing how happiness is used to justify social oppression. Inhaltsverzeichnis Acknowledgments ix Introduction: Why Happiness, Why Now? 1 1. Happy Objects 21 2. Feminist Killjoys 50 3. Unhappy Queers 88 4. Melancholic Migrants 121 5. Happy Futures 160 Conclusion: Happiness, Ethics, Possibility 199 Notes 225 References 283 Index 301

Auteur

Sara Ahmed is Professor of Race and Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths College, University of London. She is the author of Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others, also published by Duke University Press; The Cultural Politics of Emotion; Strange Encounters: Embodied Others in Post-Coloniality; and Differences that Matter: Feminist Theory and Postmodernism.

Texte du rabat

"At a time when happiness studies are all the rage and feminism is accused of destroying women's happiness, Sara Ahmed offers a bold critique of the consensus that happiness is an unconditional good. Her new book asks searching questions about the nature of the good life, making its case in a wonderfully pellucid prose. What a paradox that a defense of the kill-joy should be such a pleasure to read! This timely, original, and intellectually expansive book is sure to trigger a great deal of debate."--Rita Felski, University of Virginia

Résumé
This provocative cultural critique of the imperative to be happy draws on the work of feminist, black, and queer critics showing how happiness is used to justify social oppression.

Contenu

Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Why Happiness, Why Now? 1

1. Happy Objects 21
2. Feminist Killjoys 50
3. Unhappy Queers 88
4. Melancholic Migrants 121
5. Happy Futures 160
   Conclusion: Happiness, Ethics, Possibility 199
   Notes 225
   References 283
   Index 301