The Materiality of Love: Essays on Affection and Cultural Practice

296 Pages·2017·14.703 MB·English

by  Anna Malinowska, Michael Gratzke

The Materiality of Love
“This compelling collection of essays captures the new directions that
post-millennial research on love (romantic and otherwise) has taken and
represents a notable break with those philosophical and psychoanalytic
traditions that have monopolised the ‘enigma’ of love for so long. By
demonstrating the extent to which cultural objects – and other material
processes – shape the practice of our affective relationships, the 18 orig-
inal chapters gathered together here provide a significant re- evaluation
of what love means in the twenty-first century.”
—Lynne Pearce, Lancaster University, UK
Drawing on love studies and research in material cultures, this book
seeks to re-examine love through materiality studies, especially their re-
cent 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.
Anna Malinowska is Assistant Professor in literary and cultural studies
at the Institute of English Cultures and Literatures (IECL), University of
Silesia, Poland.
Michael Gratzke is Professor of German and Comparative Literature
and Associate Dean for Research at the University of Hull in England.
Routledge Research in Cultural and Media Studies
For a full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com.
103 The Trauma Graphic Novel
Andrés Romero-Jódar
104 Politics, Media and Democracy in Australia
Public and Producer Perceptions of the Political Public Sphere
Brian McNair, Terry Flew, Stephen Harrington, and Adam Swift
105 Spectral Spaces and Hauntings
Edited by Christina Lee
106 Affective Sexual Pedagogies in Film and Television
Kyra Clarke
107 Tracing the Borders of Spanish Horror Cinema and Television
Edited by Jorge Marí
108 Screen Comedy and Online Audiences
Inger-Lise Kalviknes Bore
109 Media Representations of Anti-Austerity Protests in the EU
Grievances, Identities and Agency
Edited by Tao Papaioannou and Suman Gupta
110 Media Practices, Social Movements, and Performativity
Transdisciplinary Approaches
Edited by Susanne Foellmer, Margreth Lünenborg,
and Christoph Raetzsch
111 The Dark Side of Camp Aesthetics
Queer Economies of Dirt, Dust and Patina
Edited by Ingrid Hotz-Davies, Georg Vogt,
and Franziska Bergmann
112 The Materiality of Love
Essays on Affection and Cultural Practice
Edited by Anna Malinowska and Michael Gratzke
The Materiality of Love
Essays on Affection and Cultural
Practice
Edited by Anna Malinowska
and Michael Gratzke
First published 2018
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an
informa business
© 2018 Taylor & Francis
The right of the editors to be identified as the authors of the
editorial material, and of the authors for their individual
chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections
77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be
trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for
identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
CIP data has been applied for.
ISBN: 978-0-415-78382-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-22863-1 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
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Contents
List of Figures ix
Acknowledgements xi
Introduction: Love Matters 1
ANNA MALINOWSKA AND MICHAEL GRATZKE
PART I
Material Love 11
1 Love Materialism: Technologies of Feeling
in the ‘Post-Material’ World (An Interview) 13
DOMINIC PETTMAN
2 Love among Objects: Poetry and Time in Light
of the Phenomenology of Values 25
JACEK MYDLA
3 Love Is Tender: A Critical Approach to Pansexualism 39
JULIE RESHE
PART II
Affective Connections: Materializing the Amorous 53
4 Between the Covers: Couples Making Books
Together as a Practice of Love 55
YVONNE CLARKE-SALT
vi Contents
5 Overcoming Absence: From Love Letters to Skype 68
CAMILLA SKOVBJERG PALDAM
6 The Matter of Kissing 85
ANNA MALINOWSKA
PART III
Objectified Amour: Representation and Social Practice 99
7 The Rise and Fall of “Emotional Capitalism”:
Consumerism and Materialities of Love in Dystopian
Works by Thomas Melle, Leif Randt and Gary Shteyngart 101
MICHAEL GRATZKE
8 Reifying Innocence: Material Contexts of Love in
The Age of Innocence and The Museum of Innocence 118
HULYA YAGCIOGLU
9 Organic Love: Reclaiming Solidity through 
Nature and Farming 131
KAROLINA LEBEK
10 (Dis) Affectionate Fetishism—Dispossessed Love in
Othello and Late Modernity 145
ADRIAN HOWE
PART IV
Affectionate Subjectivity 161
11 Exploring Maternal Affective Investments: Mary Kelly’s
Post-Partum Document (1973–79) and the Material
Narrative of Love 163
JUSTYNA WIERZCHOWSKA
12 The Amorous Frenzy of Things: Georges Bataille’s
Basely Material Love 177
MICHAŁ KRZYKAWSKI
13 The Queer Love Life of Photo(n)s 193
TOMASZ SIKORA
Contents vii
PART V
Creating Forms of Love 209
14 Embodied Soulmarks and Social Expectations:
The Materialization of Romantic Love in Soulmate
AU Fanfiction 211
KINGA KOWALSKA
15 Citizen Snake: Uncoiling Human-Bindings for Life 223
SUSAN PYKE
16 Reconfigured Families: Stories about Love 237
MICHELLE ELMITT
17 As a Matter of Love: A Short Dialogue on
Love Made Material 252
FRANCESCA RENDLE-SHORT AND MELODY ELLIS
List of Contributors 269
Index 273
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List of Figures
13.1 Image one (by Tomasz Sikora) 195
13.2 Image two (by Tomasz Sikora) 198
13.3 Image three (by Tomasz Sikora) 200
13.4 Image four (by Tomasz Sikora) 202
13.5 Image five (by Tomasz Sikora) 204