According to Eva Illouz, love is glorified as a supreme value capable of delivering happiness - a ‘collective utopia’ (1997, p. 7). Narratives of romantic love, from the poems of the Troubadours to Romeo and Juliet, are associated with individual liberty and equality, personal freedom and satisfaction, and with its radical opposition to conventional social structures. For this reason romantic love, from the very beginning, was considered a dangerous idea; its connection with individual agency, its disconnection from family, class, social and religious duty, its association with free love and sexual freedom, made it a threat not only to life-long monogamous marriage and traditional family structures but also to divisions based on class, religion and race. Indeed Anthony Giddens refers to romantic love as ‘intrinsically subversive’ (Giddens, 1992, p. 46).
Romantic love is now thought capable of removing social barriers, of delivering individual agency and even social progress. Nowhere has this discourse been more visible in contemporary political debate in Australia than in the same-sex marriage debate where love is the constant cry against the ban on same-sex marriage.
Possible themes
- The relationship between romantic love and the institution of marriage
- The concept of love in the same-sex marriage debate
- ‘Love marriage’ as a means of rebellion in subaltern cultures
- Cross-cultural understandings of love
- Feminist, queer and socialist critiques of romantic love
- Love, state and legislation
- Love and disciplinarity in the humanities and social sciences
- Romantic love in entertainment and the ‘culture industry’
Convenors
Dr Renata Grossi
Freilich Foundation, Research School of Humanities and the Arts
T:+ 61 (02) 6125 5527
E: Renata.Grossi@anu.edu.au
Associate Professor David West
School of Politics and International Relations, Research School of Social Sciences
T: +61 (02) 6125 4256
E: David.West@anu.edu.au