Happily Ever After: Dismantling the Myth of Romantic Love 4219-SD080
This course will examine the myth of romantic love in American culture. We will focus on centrality of the “love plot” in books, movies, TV shows, and other texts of culture, as well as its role in perpetuating compulsory heterosexuality, sexuality, ablebodiedness, and invisibility of racial and ethnic diversity. Various iterations of the ideal of romantic love will be analyzed based on examples from American literature, including both classic novels (e.g. The Great Gatsby) and popular genres (romance, young adult fiction), movies (romantic comedies, melodrama), and TV shows. Drawing on gender and queer studies methodologies, as well as popular culture studies, the course will look at tropes, archetypes, and genre conventions typical of texts about romantic love. Students will practice their critical skills and discuss the often invisible politics of popular culture.
Main topics
1. The love plot: typical romantic tropes.
2. Brave knights and vulnerable princesses: gendered archetypes.
3. “Respectable” romance: romantic love in high-brow literature.
4. Pornography for women: low-brow romance novels.
5. All the single ladies: search for love in contemporary movies and television.
6. Compulsory sexuality and amatonormativity.
7. “Love Wins:” homonormative romance.
8. Race and love.
9. Beyond romantic couples: queering romantic love.
10. A world without love: dystopian vision of futures without love
Type of course
Learning outcomes
KNOWLEDGE
Upon completing this course a student:
a. understands the central place of the hegemonic idea of romantic love in American culture
b. has an advanced knowledge of the variations of the romantic plot in American culture
c. understands the critiques of romantic love and its depiction in culture made by feminists, gender and queer studies scholars, and critical race theorists
SKILLS
Upon completing this course a student:
a. is able to critically apply theories and concepts concerning gender and queer theory and popular culture studies
b. is able to analyze texts of culture in terms of politics of representation, depiction of gendered, racialized, and sexually non-normative characters and bodies
c. can identify, define, and describe tropes and archetypes employed in texts with a love plot at their center
COMPETENCES
Upon completing this course a student:
a. understands the role of romantic love (re)presented in texts of culture in shaping social reality of the US
b. is aware of the importance of critical analysis of works of popular culture
c. is able to plan and undertake research steps in order to prepare a presentation and an essay based on an analysis of a depiction of romantic love in a chosen text of culture
Assessment criteria
Special emphasis is placed on students' active participation, which means that students are expected to participate in the discussions and group work during the classes. Students will prepare presentations in groups of 2, in which they will use theories and skills developed in class to analyze a chosen text of culture with regards representation of romantic love.
Active class participation: 30%
Presentation on a chosen text of culture: 30%
Final essay: 40%
Students need 60% to pass the course.
Bibliography
Primary texts (subject to change)
Fitzgerald, Francis S. The Great Gatsby. Benediction Books: 2016 [1925].
A romance novel (selection).
Oliver, Lauren. Delirium. Harper Collins: 2011.
A feature-length Disney animated movie.
The Lobster, dir. Yorgos Lanthimos. 2015.
Love, Simon, dir. Greg Berlanti. 2018.
Secondary readings (subject to change)
Ahmed, Sara. The Promise of Happiness. Durham and London: Duke University Press. 2010 (selected fragments).
Brake, Elizabeth. Minimizing Marriage: Marriage, Morality, and the Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2012 (selected fragments).
Boddice, Rob. A History of Feelings. London: Reaktion Press. 2019 (selected fragments).
Chen, Angela. ACE: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, And The Meaning Of Sex. Boston: Beacon Press, 2020 (selected fragments).
Illouz, Eva. Why Love Hurts. A Sociological Explanation. Cambridge: Polity Press. 2012 (selected fragments).
Pearce, Lynne, and Jackie Stacey. Romance Revisited. New York: NYU Press. 1995. (selected fragments).
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. A Dialogue on Love. Boston: Beacon Press. 2000 (selected fragments).
Snitow, Ann. “Mass Market Romance: Pornography for Women is Different.” Radical History Review Spring/Summer 1979 1979(20): 141-161.
Additional information
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: