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Talk of Love: How Culture Matters
Talk of love surrounds us, and romance is a constant concern of popular culture. Ann Swidler's Talk of Love is an attempt to discover how people find and sustain real love in the midst of that talk, and how that culture of love shapes their expectations and behavior in the process. To this end, Swidler conducted extensive interviews with Middle Americans and wound up offering us something more than an insightful exploration of Talk of Love is also a compelling study of how much culture affects even the most personal of our everyday experiences.
312 pages, Paperback
First published May 26, 2000
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
December 7, 2022
Don't let this book's rating fool you, it has a legendary status within Cultural Social Theory -in fact I'm somewhat convinced that God sat Swidler down and told her what's up....
On the face of it, this is a book about relationship practices among 88 middle-aged men and women from the suburbs of San Jose California -but what an awful sample? In a very clever move, by targeting a specific demographic which under certain *cough* neo-Durkheimian views *cough* ought to lead to a sample brimming in cultural coherence and systematic world views she shows that this is anything but the case. Indeed the puzzle that motivates the book is the empirical variation she finds in the degrees of rationalization and detailed richness exhibited by individuals' understandings of culture (in this case understandings of love & marriage).
Her answer to this puzzle begins with the classical Bourdieuian move of separating explicit culture and experience on the one hand and re-situating the demands on social action to be the 'practical' demands created by social structures (in this case the institution of marriage) -in doing this the foundation of social order becomes nothing but habits all the way down (or what she would call strategies of action). Swidler's stroke of genius is to, unlike Bourdieu, not throw explicit structural cultural systems under the bus but instead, tie them to habit via reflexive consciousness as being the material which we use to construct, repair, and sustain strategies of action when they come under threat or cease to meet the problems that are demanded of us (these processes can be either individual (as in the case of love) or collective (as in the case of say a revolution)). During such periods of instability, we turn to culture, absorbing as much as we can from books, podcasts, idealogues, or friends, and then bringing our belief system under the systematizing watch of rationality before constructing or tweaking our strategies of action.
Lastly, despite the fact that this is a cultural theory text dressed up as a book about love, I actually found that she had a lot of insightful things to say about love. Which is basically that love derives its meaning from signifying a commitment to the institution of marriage, this commitment has two sides to it; we use discourses of 'movie love' to explain and talk about our fulfillment of the institution of marriage, i.e., answers to the question 'why did you get married; whilst we use discourses of love as hard work and commitment between two people who freely chose to get married, to actually manage and repair the relationship which meets the institutional demand of marriage. This is all to say that the discourses of love emerge, and are sustained by, the common set of practical demands derived from the generalized orientation towards a (volunteeristic) commitment to the institution of marriage. If this sounds a hell of a lot like a field theoretical explanation, that's because it is -why Swidler doesn't explicitly talk about this (apart from one paragraph where she makes a vague allusion to magnetic fields and gravitational fields) is beyond me, however, this variant of field is certainly quite different from your classical Bourdieuian approach!
Essential Reading.
Read for: Field Theory, Neo-Bourdieuzians, Cultural Theory, Anti-representationalism, and Practice Theory.
On the face of it, this is a book about relationship practices among 88 middle-aged men and women from the suburbs of San Jose California -but what an awful sample? In a very clever move, by targeting a specific demographic which under certain *cough* neo-Durkheimian views *cough* ought to lead to a sample brimming in cultural coherence and systematic world views she shows that this is anything but the case. Indeed the puzzle that motivates the book is the empirical variation she finds in the degrees of rationalization and detailed richness exhibited by individuals' understandings of culture (in this case understandings of love & marriage).
Her answer to this puzzle begins with the classical Bourdieuian move of separating explicit culture and experience on the one hand and re-situating the demands on social action to be the 'practical' demands created by social structures (in this case the institution of marriage) -in doing this the foundation of social order becomes nothing but habits all the way down (or what she would call strategies of action). Swidler's stroke of genius is to, unlike Bourdieu, not throw explicit structural cultural systems under the bus but instead, tie them to habit via reflexive consciousness as being the material which we use to construct, repair, and sustain strategies of action when they come under threat or cease to meet the problems that are demanded of us (these processes can be either individual (as in the case of love) or collective (as in the case of say a revolution)). During such periods of instability, we turn to culture, absorbing as much as we can from books, podcasts, idealogues, or friends, and then bringing our belief system under the systematizing watch of rationality before constructing or tweaking our strategies of action.
Lastly, despite the fact that this is a cultural theory text dressed up as a book about love, I actually found that she had a lot of insightful things to say about love. Which is basically that love derives its meaning from signifying a commitment to the institution of marriage, this commitment has two sides to it; we use discourses of 'movie love' to explain and talk about our fulfillment of the institution of marriage, i.e., answers to the question 'why did you get married; whilst we use discourses of love as hard work and commitment between two people who freely chose to get married, to actually manage and repair the relationship which meets the institutional demand of marriage. This is all to say that the discourses of love emerge, and are sustained by, the common set of practical demands derived from the generalized orientation towards a (volunteeristic) commitment to the institution of marriage. If this sounds a hell of a lot like a field theoretical explanation, that's because it is -why Swidler doesn't explicitly talk about this (apart from one paragraph where she makes a vague allusion to magnetic fields and gravitational fields) is beyond me, however, this variant of field is certainly quite different from your classical Bourdieuian approach!
Essential Reading.
Read for: Field Theory, Neo-Bourdieuzians, Cultural Theory, Anti-representationalism, and Practice Theory.
June 22, 2019
I'm somehow surprised I hadn't heard of this book before or her cultural reportoire theory. She takes on a study to analyse how we understand love ( from a Western perspective, which one could argue is the global perspective unfortunately) she interviews people of different backgrounds, quoting them and then breaking down their process of associations. Parts of the book are her professional reflections. It's an easy read, engaging when she gets to the part of interviewing, a bit dull for me when she picks up a topic and muses at it from different angles (only because I'm on vacation and want a break from this type of analysis) Unfortunately wasn't able to complete the whole book because the deadline to return the book was suddenly earlier than expected. I might borrow it again or purchase it at some point. It's great for reference.
October 12, 2008
Swidler’s central argument in Talk of Love is that culture is used as a resource and that its uses vary. She suggests that this variation exists not only between individuals but also within individuals, with people drawing more on cultural resources at some points in time than others. She also argues that culture works from two directions, the “inside out” and the “outside in.” Swidler uses interviews about love with eighty-eight middle-class Americans, ages twenty to sixty, to evaluate general ideas about how culture works.
It was interesting reading about the contradictions inherent in American's ideas bout love. Swidler suggests two cultures of love exist and operate simultaneously, the mythic view and the prosaic/realist view. Definitely not a romantic read and more geared towards academics, so don't let the cover throw you off.
It was interesting reading about the contradictions inherent in American's ideas bout love. Swidler suggests two cultures of love exist and operate simultaneously, the mythic view and the prosaic/realist view. Definitely not a romantic read and more geared towards academics, so don't let the cover throw you off.
April 15, 2010
While this book in its early chapters and its conclusion focuses on the sociological problem of describing what culture is and particularly on how culture functions -- it's the middle portion which describes how middle class people talk about love that I find so fascinating.
It's deliberately narrow in scope -- California middle class heterosexuals -- but the argument it makes that culture and institution works together, and that the description of mythic love describes the institution of marriage is pretty awesome. And it's something to consider and unpack both as a feminist, and as a GLTB ally.
It's deliberately narrow in scope -- California middle class heterosexuals -- but the argument it makes that culture and institution works together, and that the description of mythic love describes the institution of marriage is pretty awesome. And it's something to consider and unpack both as a feminist, and as a GLTB ally.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
uni
March 8, 2024reading list - sociology of culture
August 18, 2013
Totally fascinating look into how we use culture to talk about/act in love. Swindler argues that we use culture as a tool kit which helps us to form frames for our behavior. Fascinating because we even sometimes build ourselves competing frames (especially in talk about love) but they appear culturally sound.
December 29, 2015
Swidler examines understandings of love among a small group of Californians, examining the myths, the pragmatism, the use of religion, in talk of love and commitment. But the book is also a primer of sorts in talking about culture and its influence on individual lives in sociology. Engaging on both levels for me.
October 26, 2007
despite the appealing title, this book is just another book i read for sociology class. good interviews though.
November 30, 2009
This book seems to have much more applicable theories to culture in general than about love/marriage specifically.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews