Eudaimonia Perspectives for Music Learning

Eudaimonia: Perspectives for Music Learning asserts the fertile applications of eudaimonia—an Aristotelian concept of human flourishing intended to explain the nature of a life well lived—for work in music learning and teaching in the 21st century. Drawing insights from within and beyond the field of music education, contributors reflect on what the "good life" means in music, highlighting issues at the core of the human experience and the heart of schooling and other educational settings. This pursuit of personal fulfillment through active engagement is considered in relation to music education as well as broader social, political, spiritual, psychological, and environmental contexts. Especially pertinent in today’s complicated and contradictory world, Eudaimonia: Perspectives for Music Learning is a concise compendium on this oft-overlooked concept, providing musicians with an understanding of an ethically-guided and socially-meaningful music-learning paradigm.

1. Eudaimonia: Flourishing through Music Learning (Gareth Dylan Smith & Marissa Silverman) / 2. Music Education and the Continuity of Mind and Life (Dylan van der Schyff) / 3.The Hull House: A Case Study in Eudaimonia for Music Learning (Marissa Silverman) / 4. The Happy Basket (Kathleen Dean Moore) / 5.Musicophilia, Biophilia, and the Human Prospect (David W. Orr) / 6. Weaponizing Racism in the Age of Trump (Henry A. Giroux) / 7. An Ecology of Eudaimonia and its Implications for Music Education (June Boyce-Tillman) / 8. Listening and the Happiness of the Musician (Sophie Haroutunian-Gordon and Megan Jane Laverty) / 9.Eudaimonia and Well-Doing: Implications for Music Education (David J. Elliott)

Gareth Dylan Smith is Assistant Professor of Music (Music Education) at Boston University, a founding editor of the Journal of Popular Music Education, and a drummer. Marissa Silverman is Associate Professor of Music at the John J. Cali School of Music at Montclair State University.