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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 love: Talk of Love is also a compelling study of how much culture affects even the most personal of our everyday experiences.

312 pages | 6 x 9 | © 2001

Gender and Sexuality

Psychology: General Psychology

Sociology: Sociology--Marriage and Family

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I. Culture’s Confusions: Who Wrote the Book of Love?
1. Finding Culture
2. Repertoires
Part II. How Culture Works: Love Stories
3. Examined and Unexamined Lives
4. Cultured Capacities and Strategies of Action
5. Settled and Unsettled Lives
Part III. Culture From the Outside In: Love and Marriage
6. Love and Marriage
7. Ties That Do Not Bind
8. Codes, Contexts, and Institutions
Conclusion - Toward Better Questions
Methodological Appendix
Notes
Bibliography
Index

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