love and desire in the penny press

Even though these article were published decades ago there is a lot of similarities between what was published in the penny press  then and the kinds of things that are published now in tabloids and represented in reality TV shows. People looked to those articles to read about scandal and romance.  Women who were stuck in the domestic sphere and longed for something outside the home found the escape in these readings. This is much like Emma Bovary she had her views of love based on the things she read in books, but unlike Emma’s characters, the people in the penny press where real. So women who had ideal weddings with men they loved or at least successful and wealthy, created an ideal for young women and what- could- have been scenario for some of the married women also reading the penny press.   Throughout the lecture I couldn’t help but think of the movie Chicago- which is a film and musical set in the 20’s about female inmates and how a lot of them maintained publicity and fame the more scandalous their crime.  These women put on a show and the audience ate it up.  I feel like this was also present now, the scandal was the reality TV of today. Today so many people get so involved in the relationships and whims of celebrities. As Roland Barthes says “Nous Deux is more obscene than sade.” The kinds of things that wind up in tabloids are at times outrages and exaggerated but the masses eat it up because it shows something of humanity- the extremes of love and desire.

Love and Desire: Examples from Ancient Art and Archeology

I thought that this  lecture was interesting take on Love and Desire, particularly  because "Art is a natural part of how people express themselves," as Professor Freund had said in his article titled Ancient Religion, Art, and Archaeology:From Sinai to Szyk. I thought this quote really tied into some of the quotes we discussed last semester from Kristeva "love would be solitary because incommunicable." Art is one of the few ways people can express love truthfully, personally, and with no restrictions. Each individual has a unique way to express and interpret love due to past experience and desires for the future. The word love itself  is solitary, the only word in the English to describe the emotion with no variability in its meaning. saying "  I love Pizza" and "I love Bob",  the word love now retains a different meaning for each occasion. the love for Bob is almost undermined by the fact that the same word can be used to describe your favorite food. One piece of art on the other hand,  can be interpreted in many different ways with no limit. Professor Freund also talked about how art is prominent in religion, despite the fact that to some christian and Jews  believe the reproduction of earthly things in an image is a sin. in my own religious and overall experience with art, I believe it is a way to experience something beyond ones self.

Seeking Love After Divorce

I found it particularly interesting that 85 percent of people reenter a relationship after 1 year of divorce and 21 percent reenter a relationship after 60 days.  I’m surprised by these statistics because at the end of a long term relationships there is often a mourning period, time to reflect on why things didn’t work out and time to see the ex-beloved in a more human way. That idealistic view that the lover has of them is shattered, it no longer protects them when they make mistakes. There is a death of the person they once knew.

 I now wonder how many of these people have actually had a chance to mourn and how many just jumped at the opportunity to feel desired again. We have talked about the difference between love and desire. After being invested in something where ones heart is essentially on a chopping block,  I feel like a person would  want to run far away from that and leap into something that is consuming and certain- desire. Desire to be desired and to desire.  I also wonder how this effects the communication between ex’s, those who have a chance to mourn and then pursue a relationship and those who just jump into a new relationship.

Dr. Miller-Ott talked about the different forms of communication in her articles. There is some evidence present in her articles that those who have jumped into relationships sooner have less disclosure with their dating behavior.in some of her interviews people who dated more often feared giving their ex to much information would affect the level of respect and the amount of perceived responsibility they had for the other.

This topic has been very though provoking in an unexpected way. I think dating after divorce is about as close as one can get to the experience of starting to date completely. One has to shake off the identity they had with their ex and rediscover themselves- kind of like a new comer in dating, but they already have a clean slate. Those who are divorced and are co-parenting cannot completely drop the identity they had with the ex because they are still have little pieces of them in their everyday life, the children. And that is their greatest struggle, which is evident in Dr.Miller-Ott’s articles.

The Politics of Friendship

During the lecture there were a few things that stood out to me. when Professor Borck had said that by naming ones enemy it says something about the self and that one begins to feel a kinship with the enemy. This made me think of Before Sunrise  when Jessie says that the reason many people dislike themselves  is because they never have a moment outside of themselves. I think these two ideas connect Because  our enemy's are often the personifications of what we do not like about ourselves. maybe that a bit radical, but I have always thought that in order to hate someone you have had to trusted and perhaps loved them first. its  like seeing someone become the very thing you fear the most of becoming yourself. I think this is why these people bother us so much because we see so much of ourselves in them and the possibilities of all the bad things we can become.  I wouldn't say these ideas connect to politics entirely, because it involves a group of people with different perceptions and experiences with the enemy, but the ideas of Derrida and Schmitt resonate on personal level in some ways. Professor Borck also presented an idea that " I think therefor I am... the other" this idea relates to the idea that we all effect each other in someway and in friendship we see the good in ourselves and the good in others, our thoughts become intertwined.