SG - The Paradoxes of Modern Love

About The Paradoxes of Modern Love

The world of commerce shouts at us: Celebrate Love! Although this seems easy at first sight, it is not trivial. How do we navigate the tension between longing for the other and our need for autonomy? To what extent is the way we love dependent on, and constrained by, societal norms, narratives and biases? What might alternative forms of love look like and what could they do for us? Join the conversation with critical anthropologists Katrien De Graeve and Rahil Roodsaz. In their co-edited book Intimate Revolutions, they explore the revolutionary potential of love and sex. Are you ready for a fresh look at the meaning of love?

About series Love & Sex

What makes us sound attractive? Can you have more than one romantic partner, or none, without feeling ashamed? And how to flirt and have sex freely while avoiding sexual harassment? In this series, we examine different dimensions of love, sex and attraction. We start with the role of the voice in intimate relationships. Next, we interactively explore what love and sex might mean nowadays, in a time when both sexual liberation and social safety are high up on the agenda. Together, we will look for better ways to express and do justice to our diverse sexual and romantic preferences and desires. Let us talk about love and sex!

About Katrien De Graeve

Katrien De Graeve is an anthropologist and obtained her PhD at Ghent University (Belgium) on research into parenting and belonging in transnational adoption. Katrien’s research interests include the anthropology of gender, sexuality and old age, and the anthropology of love, care, families and (non-)monogamous relationships. Trained in sociolinguistics and anthropology, she makes use of, among others, ethnographic research and discourse analytic methodologies. At present, she is affiliated with Ghent University as an associate professor and leads a research project entitled 'Later-in-Life Intimacies', which explores older women's sexuality.

About Rahil Roodsaz

Rahil Roodsaz is a cultural anthropologist and works as an assistant professor at the University of Amsterdam. She received her PhD from Radboud University Nijmegen, where she studied the views of Iranian Dutch people on sexuality. Her current research examines how people navigate the apparently contradicting desires for both autonomy and commitment in monogamous and non-monogamous relationships, and as singles looking for a partner. Rahil’s work takes an intersectional perspective and uses gender, class, race and religiosity as analytical lenses to gain a diversity-sensitive understanding of the dynamics of modern love.