Listen to the first 24 minutes of William Reddy’s “Romantic love and the history of emotions” on ABC Radio National Big Ideas 2013 at: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/romantic-love-and-the-history-of-emotions/4661102
1. Reddy argues that romantic love is not universal for what reason?
2. How does he support his arguments with neuroscience?
The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, 100, 1 (Jul., 1996), 64–80. Vicki Howard, “The Courtship Letters of an African American Couple: Race, Gender, Class, and the Cult of True Womanhood.” (J-Stor).
3. How were the courtships of white rural Americans at the period different from those of Calvin Rhone and Lucia Knott?
4. Can this particular “emotional style” be viewed as part of a greater “emotional community”?
5. What authors and how many letters are there in the collection? What does this reveal regarding who retained what?
Overview
William T. Laprade Professor of History and Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Duke University, William M. Reddy, elaborates on the subject of passionate love in this intriguing lecture. His award-winning book The Making of Romantic Love: Longing and Sexuality in Europe, South Asia, and Japan, 900–1200 CE tackles this topic (2012). The ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions sponsored the presentation, which took place in March of last year at the University of Melbourne. The discussions’ synopsis is shown below. My own research in the sociology of emotions has been influenced by Reddy’s earlier work, particularly by his idea of “emotional regimes.” I recently purchased this book and am eager to start reading it.
The session provides a fair outline of the key points that imply the history of love in Europe differs from that of love and sexual desire in other cultures. The medieval idea of courtly love emerged in opposition to moral theological notions of sexual love as a “appetite of the flesh” to be suppressed, controlled, and subject to discipline. This was the situation in Europe prior to the 12th century CE, but not later. As is the Western propensity, love became “divided” or “bifurcated,” between “bad/profane” sexual desire and “pure/sacred” sublime love—body and soul. According to Reddy, who creates a comparative ethnography of love using (mainly) literary examples from Japan, Asia, and other civilizations, this separation did not occur anywhere else. These themes, and much more besides, feature in the talk.
