AustLit

'The history of romantic love has a long precedent, with the emotion/s and its practices situated as a key development in the production of modernity for the social historians of the 1970s. Since then, scholars in disciplines as diverse as history, literature, politics, sociology, anthropology, geography and the biological sciences have sought to explore, contest and rethink what romantic love is; whether it is a product of nature or nurture, and its cultural dimensions; and its implications for key sociological ideas, including the shape of the family, gender equality, and production of the modern. The Popular Culture of Romantic Love in Australiaoffers a twofold contribution to this scholarship. First, it seeks to ask whether Australia has its own version of romantic love, and, if so, how is that expressed, contested, and how has it evolved over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Second, it seeks to explicitly consider how romantic love is depicted in a wide variety of popular cultural forms, from Valentine’s Day cards to film and television to novels and comic books to hillbilly music and rock and roll. It seeks to give an account of the cultural practices grouped under the umbrella of ‘romantic love’ and how these might shape what we think it is.'  (Introduction)