Books, monograph by Swen Seebach
Love and Society - Special Social Forms and the Master Emotion
In often moving ways, this scholarly text explains how love has come to be at the heart of late m... more In often moving ways, this scholarly text explains how love has come to be at the heart of late modern morality. The book beautifully navigates from explaining the sacred to the mundane ideas, myths, rituals and experiences of love and how they have changed. This is a theoretically rich and empirically exciting journey that seeks to illustrate love as a social bond as well as an emotion that has become predominant in linking individuals to the social sphere in durable ways. It is a compelling account of the ways in which love has become the fundamental organising principle of our social world with implications for how intimates are morally distinguished from non-intimates and how consumption is entangled with our selves and desires.
Dr Mary Holmes, University of Edinburgh, UK
Seebach has produced a grand systematic treatise on the historical transformations of love as code, ritual, and experience. Skillfully integrating Simmel and Luhmann with micro-sociology of emotions, he shows how love survives within the frames of contemporary myths and "rituals of the second order" even in the flux of late modernity.
Randall Collins, author of Interaction Ritual Chains.
Seebach's Love and Society covers a lot of ground: not only does it superbly review the now crowded space of theories of love, but it also analyzes the rituals, stories and forms of exchange at work at love, and asks what makes love a second order social form, that is a social form made to last. The idea of love as a second order social form is original and persuasively argued throughout. This is an important addition to the philosophical and sociological literature on love.
Eva Illouz, EHESS and Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Papers by Swen Seebach
Between temporalities, imaginaries and imagination: A framework for analysing futures
European journal of social theory, Mar 21, 2024
This article introduces a relational approach to studying imaginaries of the future, emphasising ... more This article introduces a relational approach to studying imaginaries of the future, emphasising their significance in comprehending present realities and the ongoing processes that interweave our social fabric. It posits ‘imaginaries of the future’ as a pivotal sociological concept for understanding the reciprocal social influences and uneven structural dynamics shaping the present. This work engages in a theoretical discourse, spotlighting the role of the future in contemporary social landscapes, while endorsing the suitability of the concept of imaginaries to elucidate how we collectively interlace our present through implicit dialogues with latent, emergent futures and glimpses of radical imagination. In this article, we advocate for sociological research on ‘imaginaries’, discussing the concept’s relevance to sociological theory and research. In addition, we make a case for examining futures as a subject of sociological research. Finally, we propose a conceptual framework for analysing imaginaries of the future from a relational sociological perspective, fostering interdisciplinary dialogue.
Between temporalities, imaginaries and imagination: A framework for analysing futures
This article introduces a relational approach to studying imaginaries of the future, emphasising ... more This article introduces a relational approach to studying imaginaries of the future, emphasising their significance in comprehending present realities and the ongoing processes that interweave our social fabric. It posits ‘imaginaries of the future’ as a pivotal sociological concept for understanding the reciprocal social influences and uneven structural dynamics shaping the present. This work engages in a theoretical discourse, spotlighting the role of the future in contemporary social landscapes, while endorsing the suitability of the concept of imaginaries to elucidate how we collectively interlace our present through implicit dialogues with latent, emergent futures and glimpses of radical imagination. In this article, we advocate for sociological research on ‘imaginaries’, discussing the concept’s relevance to sociological theory and research. In addition, we make a case for examining futures as a subject of sociological research. Finally, we propose a conceptual framework for analysing imaginaries of the future from a relational sociological perspective, fostering interdisciplinary dialogue.
Simmel Studies, 2021
Simmel belongs without doubt among the classics of sociology. He dedicated his academic efforts t... more Simmel belongs without doubt among the classics of sociology. He dedicated his academic efforts to the foundation of sociology as a discipline and to the exploration and understanding of society at the beginning of the 20th century. With his unique approach he established both what we know as formal and as relational sociology. Formal sociology because he approached the analysis of society via social forms, relational sociology because he understood society as a web of social bonds and strings, of reciprocal actions and effects (Simmel, 2009: 26). As a sociologist, Simmel explored different forms, objects, and relations in society. Although his last works date back more than a century, his production continues to be of great value when engaging with contemporary questions in our social universe, and offers the reader a chance to discover answers to and potential perspectives on current social affairs and phenomena.
Love magic - the meaning of rituals of love and love as a second order form in the weaving of durable social bond in late modernity
Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, 2013
Emotion memories and emotional expressions in autobiographical interviews
Emotions and Society
This article focuses on the fundamental role that emotion memories play in constructing autobiogr... more This article focuses on the fundamental role that emotion memories play in constructing autobiographical narrations. It suggests that the analysis of emotion memories can provide a deep insight into a variety of processes and fields of individual and social life (Cavarero, 2000). Based on the analysis of emotion memories in life-story interviews, this article will show the deep-rooted interrelatedness between the self and its social environment with emotion memories as an influential element. This article aims to show that strong emotional experiences mould the interviewees’ narrations because they penetrate and shape the remembered past and anticipated future by enhancing, suppressing and hence shaping past and future experiences. If turned into emotion memories, these experiences allow the channelling, taming and/or evoking of emotions. This practice relates different memories and life-story moments with each other and puts them into a new context. This article claims that emotion...
Introduction. Simmel In/On Love
Simmel studies, 2021
Love as a second-order form
Love and Society, 2017
Artnodes, 2022
This article is the result of a shared collaborative research project between the Oberstufen-Koll... more This article is the result of a shared collaborative research project between the Oberstufen-Kolleg Bielefeld, the faculty of pedagogy of the University of Bielefeld and a research group based at the Open University of Catalonia (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya). It presents and discusses a human, sociological and pedagogical project in participatory action research, in which we sought to follow Appadurai’s call for research as a human right and put it into practice. The article shares and analyzes a pedagogical practice in which the work with imaginaries was rendered an essential part of the educative process, becoming especially important for students who felt they were somehow excluded from full participation in social life. Furthermore, the article provides ideas about the relevance of putting imaginaries into participatory research, to relate society’s members in shared research processes as well as the remarkable reciprocal effects that might result from these practices.
Digithum
Over the last decade, the social agenda has been shaped by a continuous chain of potentially fort... more Over the last decade, the social agenda has been shaped by a continuous chain of potentially forthcoming future emergencies. Imagined, projected, and expected emergencies and crises have affected political and scientific agendas and redefined the pre-planning for risks at a local, national, and global level. Whilst most of these emergencies took place largely on an imaginary stage and never materialised – at least not with significant effects on global society – the COVID-19 pandemic finally made real the imaginary that had been expected and projected for over a decade. This article claims that within the context of an emergency in the making and the consequent social, economic, political, and material crises, sociology and social analysis need to assume new responsibilities by providing answers and perspective to those social developments that are direct and indirect results of the social and material conditions of a society of emergency. In a world in which the reality of emergenc...
Miedo y enfado hacia el otro: el extraño, el enfermo y la lucha imaginaria por la supervivencia
This article wants to explore the associative relationship between epidemics, lack of hygiene and... more This article wants to explore the associative relationship between epidemics, lack of hygiene and foreignness that German people, politicians and the German press have made repeatedly during the recent wave of migration from Syria to Germany. It wants to especially look at the emotions of fear, anger and the resulting hate that not only pull these two things together but that combine being a health risk and being a stranger in a way that they create a vicious circle in which one perpetuates the other and creates a condition in which one always serves as a justification for the other.We will present the relationships among fear, anger, and hate empirically by reflecting on a few interviews carried out in Germany, three press articles and people’s comments in the press, on Facebook and other social media that have surfaced after a small outbreak of scabies in a refugee camp in the Jenfelder Moorpark in Hamburg. The outbreak was neither medically meaningful nor caused by a lack of the ...
Cuadernos de Teoría Social, Sep 1, 2020
Estudios Atacamenos, 2019
El artículo realiza un estudio de los drones como nuevo dispositivo en la biovigilancia. La exten... more El artículo realiza un estudio de los drones como nuevo dispositivo en la biovigilancia. La extensión y velocidad de vectores infecciosos en una sociedad globalizada en la cual riesgos locales pueden afectar rápidamente a la sociedad mundial hacen necesarios nuevos modos de vigilancia. Hemos encontrado en los drones un dispositivo de poder que además de facilitar formas inéditas de control genera nuevas fronteras entre enfermos y sanos, entre sujetos de control y los otros. Este artículo hace un recorrido histórico de los drones y reflexiona sobre su impacto en la biovigilancia, señalando las ventajas y riesgos que aporta este nuevo dispositivo en el campo de la vigilancia.
Send Me a Message and I’ll Call You Back: The Late Modern Webbing of Everyday Love Life
Love and Society
Love and Society, 2017
In often moving ways, this scholarly text explains how love has come to be at the heart of late m... more In often moving ways, this scholarly text explains how love has come to be at the heart of late modern morality. The book beautifully navigates from explaining the sacred to the mundane ideas, myths, rituals and experiences of love and how they have changed. This is a theoretically rich and empirically exciting journey that seeks to illustrate love as a social bond as well as an emotion that has become predominant in linking individuals to the social sphere in durable ways. It is a compelling account of the ways in which love has become the fundamental organising principle of our social world with implications for how intimates are morally distinguished from non-intimates and how consumption is entangled with our selves and desires. Dr Mary Holmes, University of Edinburgh, UK Seebach has produced a grand systematic treatise on the historical transformations of love as code, ritual, and experience. Skillfully integrating Simmel and Luhmann with micro-sociology of emotions, he shows how love survives within the frames of contemporary myths and "rituals of the second order" even in the flux of late modernity. Randall Collins, author of Interaction Ritual Chains. Seebach's Love and Society covers a lot of ground: not only does it superbly review the now crowded space of theories of love, but it also analyzes the rituals, stories and forms of exchange at work at love, and asks what makes love a second order social form, that is a social form made to last. The idea of love as a second order social form is original and persuasively argued throughout. This is an important addition to the philosophical and sociological literature on love. Eva Illouz, EHESS and Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Simmel Studies, 2016
This article sheds light on the experience which we share in the one and a half hours which we sp... more This article sheds light on the experience which we share in the one and a half hours which we spend in the cinema. It discusses the experiences that are framed between the opening and the closing of the curtain that covers the screen. Thereby it reflects on the reasons for the success and importance of the cinema in modern and especially late modern society, on its meaning for us as individuals and for the webbing of our social bonds. By discussing texts of Simmel, Turner, Sennett and Benjamin, and relating them with each other, we have tried to analyse critically the changes that might have happened to actors and audiences when the stage became a screen, and the actor part of an imaged story. As a result we have identified the cinematic experience as a new kind of ritual that fits with the needs and conditions of late modern society, a ritual wherein emotions play the central role.
Les cahiers du numérique, 2013
Based on thoughts resulting from three years of empirical analysis and fieldwork, this article wi... more Based on thoughts resulting from three years of empirical analysis and fieldwork, this article will give a reflection on the meaning of electronic communication within the weaving of our intimate love relationships. In a time of globalization and individualization love relationships have turned into the save havens in which individuals are hoping to find protection, individual satisfaction and recognition for who they are. Electronic communication, as a relatively new, but however central form of communicating today, with its rather cold and technical aura seems to diametrically oppose the warmth, intimacy and intensity a love relationship stands for. However, despite seeming to oppose each other, electronic communication and love relationships have become increasingly weaved together. In fact, electronic communication has become an important part of intimate love relationships, helping couples to organize, share, and even to enchant each other. This article reflects on empirical findings concerning the discussion of whether electronic communication is an obstacle or a helpful tool for relating with each other in our love relationships. Building on the idea that electronic communication in love relationships (and in general) cannot be understood by itself but only interrelated with other forms of socially interrelating with each other, there is no simple answer but many clues about potential variables that shape the relationships of couples which mainly relate with each other via electronic communication. Cet article des Editions Lavoisier est disponible en acces libre et gratuit sur lcn.revuesonline.com
How elders evaluate apps: A contribution to the study of smartphones and to the analysis of the usefulness and accessibility of ICTS for older adults
Mobile Media & Communication, 2015
Elders are an important part of this society and a group for which ICTs might provide useful answ... more Elders are an important part of this society and a group for which ICTs might provide useful answers to existing problems and needs. However, elders and their interests with regard to ICTs have been largely ignored due to a presupposed missing ability to use, a general disinterest in, and a lack of will to learn about ICT developments. This article wants to contribute to the debate about elders and their abilities to use and interests in ICTs. We analysed how elders in focus groups in Spain use mobile ICT applications, how they experiment with them and why they decide to use or not to use them. In our research, we have used apps as an example for ICTs because apps are considered to be flagships for technological innovation, and because, in contrast to call and messenger functions of mobile phones, the motivation for using apps has to come from the individual that uses them. Findings from 4 focus group discussions with elders from Spain suggest that age does not directly influence th...
Digithum, 2018
This article reflects on the developments of and concerning the museum as a dispositive. It argue... more This article reflects on the developments of and concerning the museum as a dispositive. It argues why the museum must be considered a dispositive. Then it follows the developments of the modern museum as a dispositive from its rise in the 19th century towards its current digital form. A critical historical reflection shows how structures of power, working within the museum, have changed. This article presents how relations of power in the museum are being woven, and how they produce respectively forms of freedom and regulation, according to the socio-historical context of which the museum is a part. Openness, inclusion and participation appear as key concepts that facilitate a better understanding of the structures of power within the late modern digital museum. These key concepts will help explain why and how the museum as a dispositive connects and relates with late modern society. Corresponding dangers will be pointed out along 3 key dimensions that can be found in the museum – ...
The objective of this article is to analyse the social relationships within online communities of... more The objective of this article is to analyse the social relationships within online communities of anorectics, their bonds, their emotions and friendships, and their subsequent relation to anorexia nervosa. The research has focused on their blogs and their forums, which create a space in which they share their experiences, and sometimes encourage each other not to give up on their eating disorder -which they view as an illness, but an illness that has become their lifestyle, and their attitude towards life. Within the article an analysis of the special bonds of friendship that tie the members of the online community together will be presented. Special attention will be paid to the similarities between secret societies and friendship bonds within pro-ana communities.
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Books, monograph by Swen Seebach
Dr Mary Holmes, University of Edinburgh, UK
Seebach has produced a grand systematic treatise on the historical transformations of love as code, ritual, and experience. Skillfully integrating Simmel and Luhmann with micro-sociology of emotions, he shows how love survives within the frames of contemporary myths and "rituals of the second order" even in the flux of late modernity.
Randall Collins, author of Interaction Ritual Chains.
Seebach's Love and Society covers a lot of ground: not only does it superbly review the now crowded space of theories of love, but it also analyzes the rituals, stories and forms of exchange at work at love, and asks what makes love a second order social form, that is a social form made to last. The idea of love as a second order social form is original and persuasively argued throughout. This is an important addition to the philosophical and sociological literature on love.
Eva Illouz, EHESS and Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Papers by Swen Seebach