Before "The Pursuit of Happiness": emotional flourishing in early Judaism, Christianity and Islam

British Academy Conferences bring together scholars from around the world to present, discuss and consolidate new research in the humanities and social sciences.

What emotions have been understood to shape human wellbeing?

Today, many in the English-speaking world would readily point to happiness, a concept now both positively felt and positively valued. Yet this association is historically contingent. The meaning and moral status of happiness have long been subjects of debate, especially in early religious discussions of the relationship between virtue, the state of being good, and pleasure, the feeling of goodness. Surprisingly, there have been few comparative investigations of emotional flourishing before the ideal of pursuing happiness became dominant, and none that examine this theme across the major religious traditions of the western world.

This conference brings together leading international scholars of early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam to explore the ideals that shaped emotional and moral life in these traditions. Participants will consider how these ideals developed over time, how they intersected across communities, and what social functions they served. In doing so, the conference offers a significant contribution to the study of human happiness, flourishing, and wellbeing, illuminating a rich and understudied intellectual history.

Conference convenors

• Dr Karen Bauer, The Institute of Ismaili Studies
• Dr Francoise Mirguet, Arizona State University
• Dr Daniel An, Yonsei University

Speakers

• Darrin McMahon, Keynote speaker
• Daniel An
• Andrew Crislip
• David Lambert
• Erez deGolan
• Eyad AbuAli
• Francoise Mirguet
• Julia Bray
• Karen Bauer
• Han Hsien Liew
• Hava Tirosh-Samuelson
• Katherine Hockey
• Katharina Heyden
• Kylie Crabbe
• Nancy Khalek
• Sara Kipfer

Convenor Biographies

Dr Karen Bauer (PhD, Princeton) is an Associate Professor in Qur'anic Studies at the Institute of Ismaili Studies. Dr Bauer’s research centres on the Qur’an and its reception history, the history of emotions, and women and gender in the Qur'an and in Islamic thought. Her books include Women, Households, and the Hereafter in the Qur'an: A Patronage of Piety (co-authored with Feras Hamza, Oxford University Press, 2023); An Anthology of Qur'anic Commentaries: On Women (co-edited with Feras Hamza, OUP, 2021), and Gender Hierarchy in the Qur’an: Medieval Interpretations, Modern Responses (Cambridge University Press, 2015). She has published several articles on emotions in the Qur'an and in Islamic history and this is the focus of her current research.

Dr Daniel An (PhD, Yale University) is Assistant Professor of Church History at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea. His research focuses on the social history of early Christianity in West Asia, drawing on both archaeological materials and textual sources in Greek, Syriac, and Coptic. At Yonsei he teaches courses on the history of emotions, monastic life across Christian and Buddhist traditions, and the history of Christian spirituality. His first book, Fear of God: Practicing Emotion in Late Antique Monasticism, was published by the University of California Press in 2025.

Dr Francoise Mirguet (PhD, Louvain) is an Associate Professor of Ancient Hebrew and the History of Emotions at Arizona State University. Her current research focuses on emotions and the history of the self in late antique Jewish literature, written in Hebrew and Greek. She is now working on a research project on touch practices in early Judaism. Her most recent book is entitled An Early History of Compassion: Emotion and Imagination in Hellenistic Judaism (Cambridge University Press, 2017). Her latest articles on touch practices in the Hebrew Bible include Touch and Responses to Pain in the Hebrew Bible: Between Biology and Cultural Construction (Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel, 2024) and Kissing in the Hebrew Bible: The Body Makes the Bond (Biblical Interpretation, 2025). Other recent articles include The Study of Emotions in Early Jewish Texts (Journal for the Study of Judaism, 2019), and What is an 'Emotion' in the Hebrew Bible? An Experience that Exceeds Most Contemporary Concepts (Biblical Interpretation, 2016).

Further information

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Image credit: Shutterstock. Image of the Tree of Life, Mosaic from Hisham's Palace, Jericho, 8th Century