Love and Sexuality in Social Theory

Love and Sexuality in Social Theory considers the role that love and sexuality play in private and public life. Drawing on both classical and contemporary social theory, it presents both theoretical and empirical studies of love and sexuality as social factors, from the earliest reconstructions of modern emotional life to the most recent analyses of liquid love. With attention to the consequences that passions and desires have both on morals and behaviour, it departs from the analysis of society in terms of the division of labour and utilitarian mechanisms to consider how a society based on performances values human energy and emotional behaviour in a contradictory way. This book therefore presents and discusses classic authors, from Georg Simmel and Pitirim Sorkin to Marianne Weber and Simone De Beauvoir, through the work of Erving Goffman and ending with contemporary authors such as Michel Foucault, Anthony Giddens, Zygmunt Bauman, Ulrich Beck and Eva Illouz. Presenting an understanding of love as the social basis of altruism, as an important factor in modern conceptions of subjectivity and that which shapes intimacy and contemporary social life, this book will appeal to scholars of sociology with interests in social theory and the sociology of emotions.