This module focuses on the literary, social and cultural issues surrounding love and intimacy and their representation in the 21st century.

In her 2012 study, Why Love Hurts, Sociologist Eva Illouz diagnosed a loss of the “cultural pathos” of love which she ascribed to the increasing rationalisation of emotions and the destabilization of clear gender roles in the second half of the 20^th century. This, according to Illouz resulted in a growing uncertainty towards love relationships. In particular, Illouz notes a “de-structuring of romantic desire”, and a disillusionment with discourses of love and passion that results in increasing irony towards traditional expressions of passion and intimacy.

In contrast, German literature and culture since the early 2000s experiences a renaissance of literary “Liebesgeschichten” that explore the conditions of love, intimacy and romance in the present, and reflects on the history of representations of love in Western European culture.

The module focuses on a series of key texts from the early to mid-2000s that all thematise the literary, social and cultural issues surrounding love and intimacy and their representation. Beginning with an introduction to the cultural history of representations of love and central conceptions of love from contemporary Social Theory, the module will explore the renaissance of the literary romance with Hanns-Josef Ortheil's bestselling Die große Liebe (2003) and Hans-Ulrich Treichel's ironic deconstruction of Ortheils' model in Mein Sardinien (2014). Navid Kermani's short novel Große Liebe (2014) combines Islamic (Sufi) traditions of romance with an ironic reflection on the German protest movement of the 1980s from the perspective of an Iranian teenager. The module continues with an exploration of two texts that thematise romance from non-heterosexual perspectives, Antje Ravic Strubel's, Kältere Schichten der Luft (2008) and Alain Claude Sulzer’s Ein perfekter Kellner (2006). The module concludes with two films on love and class, Christian Petzold’s Dreileben (2011) and Thomas Stuber's underclass romance In den Gängen (2018). Issues of gender, diversity, ethnicity, power and normativity in relation to (Western European) traditions of representing love and romance will be addressed throughout the module.

Set Texts:

Hanns-Josef Ortheil, Die große Liebe, Munich, Luchterhand/BTB, 2003.

Hans-Ulrich Treichel, Mein Sardinien, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp, 2014.

Navid Kermani, Große Liebe, Hamburg, Rowohlt, 2014.

Antje Ravic Strubel, Kältere Schichten der Luft, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp, 2008.

Alain Claude Sulzer, Ein perfekter Kellner, Frankfurt, Suhrkamp 2006.

Christian Petzold Dreileben (Film, 2011)

Thomas Stuber, In den Gängen (Film, 2018)