Love and Intimacy in Contemporary Society reflects on relationships in contemporary society and the role of love and intimacy in framing lives. The book draws on sociological perspectives, cultural sociology and gender theory perspectives.

Love and Intimacy in Contemporary Society reflects on relationships in contemporary society and the role of love and intimacy in framing lives. The book draws on sociological perspectives, cultural sociology and gender theory perspectives. It looks at how love and intimacy is experienced differently and intersected by gender, ethnicity, race and sexuality. This book aims to encourage people to understand theories of intimacy, emotions and desire by examining these concepts contemporaneously and cross-culturally. It also explores how love and intimacy is experienced by young people and how it is impacted by age. It looks at its representation in the media and film and focuses on how gender, ethnicity and sexuality offer different perspectives on love and intimacy. The book shows how relationships are impacted by social networking and new technologies and the opportunities and challenges posed by these new platforms for building relationships. Finally, the book examines how intimacy has become commercialised in late capitalism and how that acts to change relationships. The book is written in an accessible way and explores a range of theoretical debates and contemporary research around emotions, which can be useful for undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral study.

"Senior international scholar Ann Brooks delivers a valuable contribution to the fast-growing areas of critical love studies and sociology of emotions with this interdisciplinary look at love. Her cutting-edge survey of current research provides a 'state-of-the-field' framework examining relationships, globalization, today's online culture, and more. A masterly synthesis!" Catherine M. Roach, Professor of Gender and Culture Studies, University of Alabama; Author of Happily Ever After: The Romance Story in Popular Culture, and the novels Master of Love and Knight of Love.? "The scope and diversity of scholarship on love and intimacy can be daunting, but Ann Brooks's Love and Intimacy in Contemporary Society: Love in an International Context offers an accessible, richly informative introduction. Anyone interested in real-life love and / or its media representations will find much to learn." Eric Murphy Selinger, Professor of English at DePaul University; Editor of the Journal of Popular Romance Studies, author of What Is It Then Between Us? Traditions of Love in American Poetry, and co-editor of Romance Fiction and American Culture: Love as the Practice of Freedom.