Love, Etc.
Essays on Contemporary Literature and Culture
Edited by Rita Felski and Camilla Schwartz
subjects:
The look of love . . . through an analytic lens
Long treated with skepticism in literary and cultural studies, love – as a subject of serious scholarly inquiry – is now attracting intense interest and renewed attention. Love, Etc. centers on two key themes: representations of love in literature and culture and love as a relationship to literature and culture. How are our attitudes to love changing in the wake of new technologies and social media; shifting norms around partnering, marriage, and divorce; and feminist and queer thought? Fifteen short and accessible essays cover a wide range of topics from Tinder to The Bachelor, from liking trees to loving aliens, from unrequited love to maternal love, from polyamory to new stories of female friendship, from loving physical books to theorizing love in popular music.
Contributors: Carolina Bandinelli, University of Warwick * Mette Blok, Roskilde University, Denmark * Angus Connell Brown * Stephanie Burt, Harvard University * Anne-Marie S. Christensen, University of Southern Denmark * Jonathan Flatley, Wayne State University * Lily Gurton-Wachter, Smith College * Timothy Laurie, University of Technology Sydney * Hanna Meretoja, University of Turku, Finland * Kevin Ohi, Boston College * John Plotz, Brandeis University * Anna Poletti, Utrecht University, The Netherlands * Jessica Pressman, San Diego State University * Biswarup Sen, University of Oregon * Hannah Stark, University of Tasmania
An outstanding volume – well written, timely, and intelligent – embracing pop culture, philosophy, poetry, and the novel. Felski's introduction offers an amazingly adroit summary of a huge amount of critical and theoretical literature strung into a highly readable narrative. Love, Etc is a model of how to write in an engaging and accessible manner without in any way sacrificing academic rigor.- Erik Gray, Columbia University, author of The Art of Love Poetry
Felski, Schwartz, and their contributors demonstrate how much scholars of the humanities can learn when we get over our embarrassment and cynicism and take love seriously. Situated at the intersection of literary studies, cultural studies, and philosophy, this splendid collection does more than show us what love means in contemporary culture. It also illuminates the contribution that love can make to contemporary critical methods.- Deidre Lynch, Harvard University, author of Loving Literature: A Cultural History
Rita Felski is the John Stewart Bryan Professor of English at the University of Virginia, the former editor of New Literary History, a Guggenheim Fellow, and the author of numerous books. Camilla Schwartz is Associate Professor of Culture and Language at the University of Southern Denmark.
