Conception: Amber Carpenter, Potsdam
With Laura Candiotto, Pardubice/Cagliari; Michael Griffin, Vancouver; Kilian Jörg, Vienna; Olga Klimecki, Hamburg; Carola Roloff, Hamburg; Christian Suhr, Aarhus; Curie Virag, Warwick

We are well aware how saturated contemporary life is in negative affect, which spreads so rapidly. But what constructive alternative emotional orientations might be set against this, and how might they be propagated? We take up the Buddhist suggestion that kindness (maitrī) is one such constructive alternative, and explore what insights into kindness classical Greek and Confucian equivalents might yield, and what contemporary psychological and anthropological analyses can teach us about how kindness might be cultivated today.