The Project

What is The Premise of Happiness?

The Premise of Happiness: The Function of Feelings in North American Narratives (PID2020-113190GB-C21) is one of two joint research grants funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation under the broad title Narratives of Happiness and Resilience (RESHAP). The second grant is for Narrating Resilience, Achieving Happiness? Toward a Cultural Narratology (PID2020-113190GB-C22). Drawing on the previous research conducted by the team within Justice, Citizenship and Vulnerability (FFI2015-63895-C2-1-R), RESHAP aims to contribute meaningfully to the critical and theoretical scholarship on the notions of happiness and resilience and aims to address the relative scarcity of research on both notions in the specific field of literary and cultural criticism.

Specifically, The Promise of Happiness will offer an interdisciplinary close reading of a wide spectrum of contemporary narratives that actively engage with the notion of happiness as articulated and deconstructed by materialist theories of affect. It aims to address the scarcity of academic scholarship on the topic in specific fields of Canadian and American Studies.

Composed of researchers from Spain, Europe and Canada, our team is highly specialized in North American Studies (Canada and the United States) and has a strong background in the broad theoretical scope of affect theory and critical theory.