Abstract
Over the past two centuries, the nature of intimate relationships has changed considerably, and as this edited volume demonstrates, this transformation has been closely intertwined with changes in the technologies and modes of communication. To examine how the subsequent changes in communication affected the way we relate to each other intimately, Eva Wyss commissioned contributions from a truly interdisciplinary range of scholars, including sociologists, historians, literary and media scholars and linguists. The opening section includes a set of broader reflections on the changing nature of the media-intimacy relationship in modern societies: the link between literacy and the growing rationalisation of romantic relationships (Illouz); the shifts in the discourse of love since the 1950s (Lenz); the relationship between the modern media, the rise of therapeutics and the proliferation of self-help media (Maasen and Duttweiler); the new types of intimate relationships engendered by the proliferation of digital media (Krotz); and the emergence of the ‘coming out’ phenomenon and the changing public discourse about homosexuality (Weinberg). The second part of the volume examines different historical and contemporary cases of mediated interaction, including private telephone conversations among adolescents (Kotthoff and Hoeflich); the changing forms, content and uses of love letters over centuries (Bergs, Wyss, Schwender and Möller-Sahling); the uses of postcards for communicating love (Holzheid); and the language, structure and function of lover songs in the Arab world (Al-Khatib). The final section comprises two contributions examining literary or fictional communication of intimacy (Schulze and Lieb). While this collection tackles an interesting topic and includes several insightful contributions, more could have been done to underscore its relevance to existing debates on the mediation of intimacy and emotions. A more ambitious introductory chapter, with a more elaborated discussion of key concepts and an engagement with existing literature in the field, could have gone a long way in addressing this weakness.