Research Guides: NYU Reads: Theme 1: The Human Condition

The Human Condition

The book touches on the human condition in terms of common human emotions and states of being such as loneliness, belonging, curiosity, empathy, happiness, love, sadness, and fear. It also touches on stages of life, such as adolescence, and the transition from adolescence to young adulthood.

Articles

Loneliness From the Adolescent Perspective: A Qualitative Analysis of Conversations About Loneliness Between Adolescents and Childline Counselors
There is limited qualitative research on the experience of loneliness in adolescence, meaning key facets of the loneliness experience that are important in adolescence may have been overlooked. The current study addresses that gap in the literature and explores how loneliness is experienced in the context of adolescence from the perspective of adolescents.
Perceiving societal pressure to be happy is linked to poor well-being, especially in happy nations
Happiness is a valuable experience, and societies want their citizens to be happy. Although this societal commitment seems laudable, overly emphasizing positivity (versus negativity) may create an unattainable emotion norm that ironically compromises individual well-being. In this multi-national study (40 countries; 7443 participants), the authors investigate how societal pressure to be happy and not sad predicts emotional, cognitive and clinical indicators of well-being around the world, and examine how these relations differ as a function of countries’ national happiness levels (collected from the World Happiness Report).

Films

Lucy
Synthetic drugs give a woman superhuman powers which she used to strike back against gangsters who kidnapped her and tried to use her as a mule. In time, her increased intelligence causes her to become disconnected from the rest of humanity.
Her
(2013) - Feature film, An original love story that explores the evolving nature and risks of intimacy in the modern world. Set in Los Angeles of the near future, Her, follows Theodore Twombly, a complex, soulful man who makes his living writing touching, personal letters for other people. Heartbroken after the end of a long relationship, he becomes intrigued with a new, advanced operating system promising to be an intuitive entity in its own right, individual to each user. Samantha is a bright, female voice who is insightful, sensitive, and surprisingly funny. As her needs and desires grow, in tandem with his own, their friendship deepens into an eventual and unconventional love for each other.

Journals

Emerging Adulthood
Emerging Adulthood (EA) is an interdisciplinary and international journal for advancements in theory, methodology, and empirical research on development and adaptation during the late teens and twenties. It covers clinical, developmental and social psychology, and other social sciences.
Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science
This journal explores the cultural nature of human conduct and its evolutionary history, anthropology, ethology, communication processes between people and within -- as well as between -- societies. It integrates perspectives of the social and biological sciences through theoretical models of epigenesis.
Journal of Adolescence
The Journal of Adolescence is an international, broad based, cross-disciplinary journal that addresses issues of professional and academic importance concerning development between puberty and the attainment of adult status within society. Our focus is specifically on adolescent development: change over time or negotiating age specific issues and life transitions.
Journal of Adolescent Research
Journal of Adolescent Research (JAR) aims to publish informative and dynamic articles from a variety of disciplines focused on adolescence and early emerging adulthood development.
YOUNG
The aim of YOUNG is to bring young people’s experiences to the centre of analysis with a view to strengthening and promoting multidisciplinary, contemporary and historical youth research with an international perspective. The journal is a forum for critical discussion and encourages submission of papers from all countries and contexts.

Reflections on Intersections

The Promise of Happiness by Sara Ahmed
ISBN: 9780822392781
Publication Date: 2010-04-06
The Promise of Happiness is a provocative cultural critique of the imperative to be happy. It asks what follows when we make our desires and even our own happiness conditional on the happiness of others: "I just want you to be happy"; "I'm happy if you're happy." Combining philosophy and feminist cultural studies, Sara Ahmed reveals the affective and moral work performed by the "happiness duty," the expectation that we will be made happy by taking part in that which is deemed good, and that by being happy ourselves, we will make others happy. Ahmed maintains that happiness is a promise that directs us toward certain life choices and away from others.

Happiness and loneliness are often brought up in Klara and the Sun.

Who defines happiness in our world?
What does happiness mean to you?
What questions would you ask the manager character when she says, "With respect, ma'aam, series three models have brought immense happiness to many children. Unless you live in Alaska or down a mineshaft, you don't need to worry" (p. 7)?
What would you ask Klara when she says, "I feel only happiness to see Manager again" (p. 300)?