The End of Love
Sociology of Negative Relations
Thursday | 19.11.20 | 18:00
A conversation |
Dr. Amalia Rosenblum and Prof. Galili Shahar
Will talk with
Prof. Eva Illouz about her book
The End of Love
A Sociology of Negative Relations
which has appeared in Hebrew.
Western culture has not ceased to praise the ways in which love bursts into our lives, the mythical moment when individuals feel powerfully that they have met the person for whom they were intended. However, that same culture that has so much to say about love says almost nothing about the no less mysterious moment in which we refrain from falling in love or stop loving. This silence is astounding in light of the huge number of relationships that fall apart soon after they start, fail at some stage, expire slowly, or die inexplicably.
In The End of Love Eva Illouz examines the range of ways in which romantic relationships come to an end. She argues that whereas in the past individual freedom was manifested in the ability to choose one’s romantic and sexual partners, in the current era romantic relationships are characterized by a lack of choice or the freedom to escape from them easily. These characteristics, which are influenced, inter alia, by the culture of late capitalism, have far-reaching ramifications for society as well as for the economy. They may explain such phenomena as the decline in the birthrate, the rise in the number of single-person households, and the decrease in the frequency of sexual intercourse.
(Keter; translated from the English by Yossi Milo)