The Professor of Love. Ann Swidler's Talk of Love is a great example of good pop sociology. Profiled in the Washington Post, she has interesting things to say about gay marriage:
Just as people turn to culture when their lives are in turmoil, societies produce "culture" -- new vocabularies, new traditions, new organizations -- when they are dealing with conflicts. Gay marriage, in particular, is likely to yield a bumper crop of new cultural material -- rituals, liturgies, even new "habits of the heart," a phrase the original authors borrowed from that early observer of American mores Alexis de Tocqueville.If gays put marriage into play, suggests Swidler, it may make its values even stronger in the long run. Lifestyle militancy just keeps finding new outlets..."Will they have to learn new habits, styles, skills?" she asks. "I do think it will be interesting to see how many new ritual forms get invented. What are gay marriage ceremonies like? What are the books written for gay parents like? What is the new terminology for the sperm donor or the egg donor, what are these people called?"
