ABSTRACT

Drawing on love studies and research in material cultures, this book seeks to re-examine love through materiality studies, especially their recent incarnations, new materialism and object-oriented philosophy, to spark a debate on the relationship between love, objects and forms of materializing affection. It focuses on love as a material form and traces connections between feelings and materiality, especially in relation to the changing notion of the material as marked by digital culture, as well as the developments in understanding the nature of non-human affect. It provides insight into how materiality, in its broadest sense, impacts the understanding of the meanings and practices of love today and reversely, how love contributes to the production and transformation of the material world. 

chapter |9 pages

Introduction

Love Matters

part I|41 pages

Material Love

chapter 1|14 pages

Love Materialism

Technologies of Feeling in the ‘Post-Material’ World (An Interview)

chapter 2|14 pages

Love among Objects

Poetry and Time in Light of the Phenomenology of Values

chapter 3|13 pages

Love Is Tender

A Critical Approach to Pansexualism

part II|46 pages

Affective Connections

chapter 4|15 pages

Between the Covers

Couples Making Books Together as a Practice of Love

chapter 5|17 pages

Overcoming Absence

From Love Letters to Skype

chapter 6|14 pages

The Matter of Kissing

part III|61 pages

Objectified Amour

chapter 7|19 pages

The Rise and Fall of “Emotional Capitalism”

Consumerism and Materialities of Love in Dystopian Works by Thomas Melle, Leif Randt and Gary Shteyngart

chapter 8|13 pages

Reifying Innocence

Material Contexts of Love in The Age of Innocence and The Museum of Innocence

chapter 9|14 pages

Organic Love

Reclaiming Solidity through Nature and Farming

part IV|48 pages

Affectionate Subjectivity

chapter 11|16 pages

Exploring Maternal Affective Investments

Mary Kelly’s Post-Partum Document (1973–79) and the Material Narrative of Love

chapter 12|16 pages

The Amorous Frenzy of Things

Georges Bataille’s Basely Material Love

chapter 13|16 pages

The Queer Love Life of Photo(n)s

part V|59 pages

Creating Forms of Love

chapter 14|14 pages

Embodied Soulmarks and Social Expectations

The Materialization of Romantic Love in Soulmate AU Fanfiction

chapter 15|14 pages

Citizen Snake

Uncoiling Human-Bindings for Life

chapter 16|15 pages

Reconfigured Families

Stories about Love

chapter 17|16 pages

As a Matter of Love

A Short Dialogue on Love Made Material