May 14, 2022 – ‘Love makes the world go round,’ according to a song from the Broadway musical Carnival. Certainly the theme of love stands out as a central force motivating poetry, fiction, film, and popular culture.

This session explores selected familiar works of literature and popular culture in order to consider what clues these they contain to the implicit meanings of love that haunt us. What secret does the song suggest when it tells us: 

Love makes the world go ‘round
Love makes the world go ‘round
Somebody soon will love you
If no one loves you now

In the 1960s people were advised to make love not war. Still, why is it that war makes for the best romantic love stories? Do our literary and popular portrayals of love provide insights into the tangled thickets of love where narcissism, domination, betrayal, disillusion and conflict accompany expressions of infinite tenderness and care?

Types of love portrayed in this session
Romantic and Erotic Love
Love of Friends, Family
Love and the Innocence of Childhood
Love of God and Country, Cosmos, Knowledge and Other Abstractions
Love of Life, Love of Earth

The feelings of love expressed in literature from the Native American context provide a contrast to the feelings and ideas of love for those of us raised in anthropocentric (human-centered) cultures.

John Briggs, PhD, taught for 25 years at Western Connecticut State University. He has taught aesthetics, journalism, and creative writing and served as co-chair of the English Department; he was one of the founders of the Department of Writing, Linguistics and Creative Process and one of the principal developers of the MFA in Professional and Creative Writing. He is now Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Writing and Aesthetics at WCSU.

Length: 1 hour and 50 mins