The Power of Love: Current Tensions, Contingencies and Visions

Love, one of the most compelling drives in human life, has not only been under-researched, but also viewed as a psychic, un-measurable and unruly subject, a realm envisioned by art, literature and philosophy, i.e. areas considered less relevant for science and more for pleasurable pursuit. Significantly, the immense scientific literature has also avoided investments in love as a powerful affect. The reasons for such rejection can be seen both as a strategic intellectual act and an emotional counteraction towards the highly individualistic conceptualisation of love as the ultimate object of human desires, which simultaneously justifies oppression. While contemporary feminist, postcolonial and eco-political theories of sustainability continue to illustrate tensions between the Eurocentric individualisation and love as a source of security in the social, the 21st century marks a significant turning point in thinking about love. Important voices emerge in research on the human right to love (care, preserve, sustain) i.e. the right to values globally eroded through enforced migrations, deteriorating labour contracts and various denials of affects. Impacted by global conflicts and loaded with tensions on a local scale, Western attitudes and understanding of love bonds become more diverse and elastic, but also more intensive than ever. In the face of the growing secularism and the shifting grounds of traditional institutions, psychic transformations in the perception of love as indispensable human affect are on the horizon.

Justyna completed her PhD. at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. She has worked at the University of York in Toronto and Queen's University in Kingston (Canada), conducting interdisciplinary courses.