For a recent broadcast with Higher Ed’s Academic Minute, Timothy Hampton talks about his new book, Cheerfulness: A Literary and Cultural History. Click here to learn more about the book. Click here to listen to the full broadcast. An excerpt appears below:

“On the map of our emotions, cheerfulness is a completely unnoticed or forgotten force. Nowadays, we often associate it with a kind of annoying upbeatness, a superficial optimism. Yet cheerfulness has a complex history. And it is defined by an important feature that sets it apart from other emotional states such as melancholy or anger. It is under our control. It is ephemeral, elusive, even, and yet we have some mastery of it.”