Theories Of Love

LTA2079 Theories of Love
4 Intermediate Liberal Arts CreditsWhat is love? Where does it come from, what does it ask of us, and how does it alter our minds, bodies, values, and relations? Are sex, friendship, and marriage necessary for love, or do they inhibit love's fullest expression? In this course, we will examine how influential writers have conceived and contested love's meanings across a range of cultural contexts. Focusing primarily on erotic love (erôs), we will consider how such meanings relate to notions of art, beauty, conjugality, legality, pleasure, sexuality, spirituality, and transgression, both in their original era and our own. Particular attention will be paid to differences of race, class, age, gender, and authority as incitements to, and/or impediments of, relations of love and eroticism.

Prerequisites: (FCI1000 or AHS1000) and (WRT1001or RHT1000)