Health and Happiness

Date(s)
Friday 28th September 2012 (09:00-16:30)
Contact

Workshop Leaders: Professor Heather Widdows, Dr Lisa Bortolotti and Professor Jean McHale

 

Description
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This workshop is being run by Birmingham’s Health and Happiness research cluster in order to map expertise and areas of interest across the University. It builds on the CAL Research theme of Health, Well Being and Value and aims to connect across colleges in order to better exploit the strength that Birmingham has in this area.

Themes which will be addressed include:

  • Competing accounts of health and disease/illness
  • Competing accounts of happiness and well being
  • Methodologies for approaching health and happiness and the points of compatibility and complementarily 
  • Phenomenological, cognitive-neuropsychological and social accounts of mental illness
  • The distinction between subjective and objective well-being
  • Social, cultural, relational, scientific, sociological, psychological and moral accounts of wellbeing.
  • The relationship between a meaningful life and a happy life

Aims of the workshop:

  • To assess whether there is enough strength in UoB for research into health and wellbeing to be a leading theme for the IAS in the future and map academics working in this topic across the University.
  • To build on current critical mass in this area and actively involve staff across different School and Colleges in the university.
  • To explore whether there are sub-themes which fall into this general theme.

Objectives:

  • To bring together relevant colleagues to foster further collaboration, including co-authored publication and preparation of major funding applications.
  • To ensure that the substantial expertise in Health and Happiness in being utilized as well as possible To explore possible collaborations in terms of future research and themes.