In today’s world, there are so many ways to experience love.
“Our culture is moving into ideas and conceptions of love that are more inclusive,” says Heather Jessup, an assistant professor in the Department of English and advisor in Dal's Creative Writing program. “There are different sexual attractions, different ideas, embodiments of gender and also the recognition of non-romantic love as having an extremely important part in our lives.”
When love is first defined, it’s often thought of lightly with butterflies and little flirtations, even sharing books, films and music.
In Dr. Jessup’s courses, discussions touch on the origins of philosophical love and the many ways that love can be expressed today. She shared some of her favourite examples of love found in recent art, television, and literature.
Art wise
Museum of Modern Art, New York City
“Marina is a performance artist who sat in a chair at the MoMA, there was a long line of people and they would one by one come and sit in a chair across from her,” Dr. Jessup says. “She would look at them, make eye contact and be as present as she possibly could with that person for as long as they needed.”
Television
2019 Hulu “cringe comedy” series
Dr. Jessup says this show is about best friends and the middle-school age experience of first love.
“I love it because it feels like a love story between the friends,” she says.
Literature
bell hooks
“A beautiful reflection of thought,” she says. “it’s all about the different ways of thinking about love. 100 per cent recommend!”
Billy-Ray Belcourt
“The book talks about Grindr culture; being a queer Indigenous person and how vulnerable that can be,” she says.
Ta-Nehisi Coates
“Between the World and Me is a love letter to his son growing up as a young black boy in a very racialized United States,” she says. “It’s one of the most heartbreaking and beautiful expressions of love that I've read about a father and a child.”
Maggie Nelson
“Bluets is about heartbreak,” she says. “I think it's a beautiful text as well”
Learning to love
Dr. Jessup believes love starts with being loved.
“We are products of someone’s love, how we learn to love is by being loved,” she says. “It’s so important that we love ourselves too because it's hard to enter into a relationship if you don't have respect and awareness of what you desire and who you are and what makes you happy and what makes you miserable.”
Dr. Jessup is mindful about heartbreak and how it is part of love and living life. She believes we learn to love by who loves us and that love and relationships, ultimately, are also about friendship and consent.