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Love Objects: Emotion, Design and Material Culture investigates the physical embodiment of love by exploring the emotional potency of objects in our lives. How do objects become fetishes, symbols and representations; active participants in and mediators of our relationships; as well as tokens of affections, symbols of virility, triggers of nostalgia, replacements for lost loved ones, and symbols of lost places and times? Taking an interdisciplinary approach to the topic, covering both designed 'things with attitude' and the 'wild things' of material culture, the book explores different methodological approaches to the concept of love, whether it is different expressions of religious devotion, familial bonds, or the complexities of sexuality and sexualisation. Love Objects covers a variety of media and object types, both material and immaterial, from nineteenth-century American men's portraits displaying passionate friendships to the commodification and objectification of Aer Lingus air hostesses.
List of contents
Editors' Foreword; Anna Moran, National College of Art and Design, Ireland and Sorcha O'Brien, Kingston University, UK
Introduction: How Do I Love Thee? Objects of Endearment in Contemporary Culture; Victor Margolin, University of Illinois, Chicago
Part 1: The Lives of Objects
1. "I Love Giving Presents": The Emotion of Material Culture; Louise Purbrick, University of Brighton, UK
2. (S)Mother's Love, or, Baby Knitting; Jo Turney, Bath School of Art and Design, Bath Spa University, UK
3. Sex, Birth, and Nurture unto Death: Patching Together Quilted Bed Covers; Catherine Harper, University of Portsmouth, UK
Part 2: Projecting and Subverting Identities
4. Bringing Out the Past: Courtly Love and Nineteenth-Century American Men's Passionate Friendship Portraits; Elizabeth Howie, Coastal Carolina University, USA
5. The Genteel Craft of Subversion: Amateur Female Shoemaking in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteeth Centuries; Noreen McGuire, Victoria & Albert Museum, UK
6. Performing Masculinity through Objects in Post-War America: The Playboy's Pipe; Jessica Sewell, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, China
Part 3: Objects and Embodiment
7. Seduced by the Archive: A Personal Relationship with the Archive and Collection of Objects Pertaining to the London Couturier, Norman Hartnell; Jane Hattrick, University of Brighton, UK
8. Kitsch Enchantment, and Power: The Bleeding Statues of Templemore in 1920; Ann Wilson, Cork Institute of Technology, Ireland
9. "Magic Toyshops": Narrative and Meaning in the Women's Sex Shop; Fran Carter, Kingston University, UK
Part 4: Mediating Relationships
10. Material Memories: Making of a Collodion Memory-Text; Christina Edwards, Aberystwyth, UK
11. The Problematic Decision to Live: Irish-Romanian Home-Making and the Anthropology of Uncertainty; Adam Drazin, University College London, UK
12. Designing Meaningful and Lasting User Experiences; Jonathan Chapman, University of Brighton, UK
Index
About the author
Anna Moran is Coordinator of the MA in Design History and Material Culture at the National College of Art and Design, Ireland.Sorcha O'Brien teaches Design History and Theory to Product and Furniture Design students in Kingston University, UK.
Summary
How are love and emotion embodied in material form?
Love Objects explores the emotional potency of things, addressing how objects can function as fetishes, symbols and representations, active participants in and mediators of our relationships, as well as tokens of affection, symbols of virility, triggers of nostalgia, replacements for lost loved ones, and symbols of lost places and times.
Addressing both designed 'things with attitude' and the 'wild things' of material culture, Love Objects explores a wide range of objects, from 19th-century American portraits displaying men's passionate friendships to the devotional and political meanings of religious statues in 1920s Ireland.
