The Oxford Handbook of the Positive Humanities

This book reviews and synthesizes the theories, research, and empirical evidence between human flourishing and the humanities broadly, including history, literary studies, philosophy, religious studies, music, art, theatre, and film. Via multidisciplinary essays, this book expands our understanding of how the humanities contribute to the theory and science of well-being by considering historical trends, conceptual ideas, and wide-ranging interdisciplinary drivers between positive psychology and the arts.

Louis Tay is the William C. Byham Associate Professor in Industrial-Organizational Psychology at Purdue University. He is coeditor of Big Data in Psychological Research and the Handbook of Well-Being. He served as the Founding Research Director of the Humanities and Human Flourishing Project and is the founder of ExpiWell, a technology platform for experience sampling research and well-being development.
James O. Pawelski is a Professor of Practice and the Director of Education in the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is the Founding Director of the Master of Applied Positive Psychology Program and the Humanities and Human Flourishing Project, which has been designated a National Endowment for the Arts Research Lab. As a philosopher who has worked in positive psychology and related areas for more than twenty years, he has authored and edited four books for academic and lay audiences and is the editor of the Oxford University Press book series on the
Humanities and Human Flourishing.

Part I: An Overview of the Positive Humanities
Chapter 1: Introduction: The Role of the Arts and Humanities in Human Flourishing
Louis Tay and James O. Pawelski
Chapter 2: The Positive Humanities: Culture and Human Flourishing
James O. Pawelski
Part II: Historical and Current Trends
Chapter 3: The Humanities and Human Flourishing
Darrin McMahon
Chapter 4: Towards a Contextual Model of Arts and Humanities Engagement and Human Flourishing
Yerin Shim
Chapter 5: Flourishing Effects of Integrating the Arts and Humanities in STEM Education: A Review of Past Studies and an Agenda for Future Research
Hoda Vaziri and Norman M. Bradburn
Part III: Flourishing Outcomes of the Arts and Humanities
Chapter 6: Art, Music, and Literature: Do the Humanities Make our Lives Richer, Happier, and More Meaningful?
Erin Westgate and Shigehiro Oishi
Chapter 7: Lessons for Positive Arts and Humanities from the Science of Meaning in Life
Alexis N. Wilkinson and Laura A. King
Chapter 8: Cultivating Psychological Well-Being through Arts-Based Interventions
Olena Helen Darewych
Chapter 9: The Neuroscience of Well-Being: A General Framework and Its Relation to Humanistic Flourishing
Yoed N. Kenett and Anjan Chatterjee
Chapter 10: How to Encourage People to Engage with the Arts and Humanities: Suggestions from Self-Efficacy Theory and Research
James E. Maddux and Evan M. Kleiman
Chapter 11: Understanding and Improving Emotion Regulation: Lessons from Psychological Science and the Humanities
Joseph Ciarrochi, Louise Hayes, and Baljinder Sahdra
Chapter 12: Character and Virtues in the Arts and Humanities
Willibald Ruch and Fabian Gander
Chapter 13: Holocaust and Humanity: Depicting Realities While Creating Pathways for Future Upstanders, Strengths Use, and Flourishing
Edward Jacobs, Michael Berenbaum and Ryan Niemiec
Part IV: Pathways from the Arts and Humanities to Flourishing
Chapter 14: The Role of Passion in the Arts and Humanities: How Quality of Engagement Matters
Robert J. Vallerand, Anna Sverdlik, and Arielle Bonneville-Roussy
Chapter 15: Flow in the Arts and Humanities: On Cultivating Human Complexity
Katherine Vrooman, Kelsey Procter Finley, Jeanne Nakamura, and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Chapter 16: Stories for Good: Transportation into Narrative Worlds
Kaitlin Fitzgerald and Melanie Green
Chapter 17: Awe, Approached
Piercarlo Valdesolo
Chapter 18: The Role of Reflection in Transformative Learning: Staff and Student Experiences
Camille Kandiko Howson and Saranne Weller
Chapter 19: Creativity and Human Flourishing
Mark Runco
Chapter 20: The Flourishing Congregations Project: Character Strengths Pathways to Enhance Well-Being Beyond the Individual
Rachel Hershberg, Ryan Niemiec, and Irwin Kula
Chapter 21: No Man is an Island: How Community Arts and Social Support Underpin Well-being
Katie Wright-Bevans and Alexandra Lamont
Chapter 22: A Walk in the Sun: The Awakening of Human Flourishing in Creative Youth Development
Ivonne Chand O'Neal
Chapter 23: Love and Other Positive Emotions in Social Practice and Contemporary Visual Art
Claire Schneider and Barbara L. Fredrickson
Part V: Disciplinary Considerations
Chapter 24: Music and Flourishing
Alexandra Lamont
Chapter 25: Visual Arts and Community Well-being
Lois Hetland and Cathy Kelley
Chapter 26: Film and Meaning
Keith Oatley
Chapter 27: Embodiment and Containment: Flexible Pathways to Flourishing in Theatre
Thalia R. Goldstein and Kristen Hayes
Chapter 28: Philosophy and Well-being
Justin Ivory and Valerie Tiberius
Chapter 29: History and Human Flourishing: Using the Past to Address the Present
Peter Stearns
Chapter 30: Practical Wisdom: What Philosophy and Literature Can Add to Psychology
Barry Schwartz
Chapter 31: Contributions of Reading Fiction to Well-being: Positive, Negative, and Ambiguous Consequences of Engaging with Fiction
David Kidd
Chapter 32: The Holiness of Wholeness: Religious Contributions to Human Flourishing
Kenneth I. Pargament, Serena Wong, and Julie J. Exline
Chapter 33: Insight and Sight: The Interplay between the Humanities and Business and the Impact on Student Well-being
Anne M. Greenhalgh, Douglas E. Allen, and Jeffrey Nesteruk
Chapter 34: The Medical Humanities: Embracing the Interdisciplinary Art of Medicine and Healthcare
Faye Reiff-Pasarew
Part VI: Public Engagement and Public Policy
Chapter 35: Investigating the Contributions of the Public Humanities to Human Development
David Kidd
Chapter 36: A New Concept for Museum "Museotherapy": Promoting Health, Well-Being and Therapy through Art
Nathalie Bondil and Stephen Legari
Chapter 37: Humanities and Public Policy: Forging Citizens and the Nation
Daniel Fisher, Beatrice Gurwitz, Cecily Erin Hill, Stephen Kidd, and Scott Muir
Chapter 38: The Contribution of the Arts to Flourishing and Health
Rebecca Gordon-Nesbitt and Alan Howarth