This seminar explores canonical understanding of happiness, emphasizing Western conceptualizations of happiness that hover around individual-level striving and ability to act. This will include studying pleasure systems in the brain and the basic tenets and major findings supportive of positive psychology. The seminar will then interrogate these concepts of happiness by critically examining the historical context that made happiness an idyllic focus of the West, by examining other ways of considering happiness that run contrary to those in the West, and by considering how happiness may be used in Western society to co-opt or cast out societal members whose interests run contrary to the status quo. Prerequisites: One Lang fundamentals course, or ULEC Introduction to Psychology with a grade of "C" or higher. *This course is open to Lang Psychology majors and minors only.