On Love and Politics

What is the relationship between artistic creation, political action, and love? In this course we will explore different philosophical concepts of love - eros (romantic ecstasy), agape (pure or divine love), philia (friendship), storge (familial love) and xenia (hospitality) - in their peculiar relationship to politics. We will analyze how the work of poets, visual artists, photographers and filmmakers testifies to the roles of affect in resisting State order, as well as how these works, as labors of love, subvert the logic of twentieth-century authoritarian regimes, becoming essential tools for social, political and cultural revolution.