Eva Illouz

Agora

Eva Illouz

b. 1961

A first way ina deliberate simplification – the portrait says more

Our feelings about love and happiness are shaped by capitalism and its culture, so the pain of love is partly a social, not just a personal, problem.

Placement

Sociology & Social Theory · West Asia & North Africa · Society & History, Ethics, Gender & Feminism

Sociologist of emotions in capitalism: love, therapy and happiness are shaped by the market and its culture, so heartbreak is not only a private failure but a social experience.

Key ideas

Emotional capitalism
Therapeutic culture
Why love hurts
Negative relations

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Influence

Influenced by 5

Sigmund Freud

influenced by
Illouz traced therapeutic culture from Freud’s lectures at Clark University (1909), through which psychoanalysis offered a new language of the self (Saving the Modern Soul, 2008). E. Illouz, Saving the Modern Soul: Therapy, Emotions, and the Culture of Self-Help (2008); S. Freud, Über Psychoanalyse (Clark lectures, 1909, printed 1910)
Evidence: AI draft
Sigmund Freud › 1856–1939
Max Weber

influenced by
Illouz extended Weber’s analysis of rationalisation to emotions, describing how intimate life becomes an object of calculation and communication (Cold Intimacies, 2007; Why Love Hurts, 2011). E. Illouz, Cold Intimacies (2007); Warum Liebe weh tut (2011); SEP “Max Weber”
Evidence: AI draft
Max Weber › 1864–1920
Theodor W. Adorno

influenced by
In her Adorno Lectures in Frankfurt (2004; Cold Intimacies, 2007) Illouz took up critical theory’s question of how capitalism shapes subjectivity and coined the term ‘emotional capitalism’. E. Illouz, Gefühle in Zeiten des Kapitalismus (Adorno-Vorlesungen 2004, 2006); Cold Intimacies: The Making of Emotional Capitalism (2007)
Evidence: AI draft
Theodor W. Adorno › 1903–1969
Pierre Bourdieu

influenced by
Illouz extended Bourdieu’s forms of capital to feelings: therapeutic culture makes emotional competence an ‘emotional capital’ convertible into social advantage (Cold Intimacies, 2007; Saving the Modern Soul, 2008). E. Illouz, Cold Intimacies (2007); Saving the Modern Soul (2008); P. Bourdieu, “Ökonomisches Kapital, kulturelles Kapital, soziales Kapital” (1983)
Evidence: AI draft
Pierre Bourdieu › 1930–2002
Arlie Russell Hochschild

influenced by
Illouz built on Hochschild’s feeling rules and emotional labour (The Managed Heart, 1983) to describe how capitalism and intimacy shape each other (Cold Intimacies, 2007). E. Illouz, Cold Intimacies (2007); A. R. Hochschild, The Managed Heart (1983)
Evidence: AI draft
Arlie Russell Hochschild › b. 1940

Works

2011Why Love Hurts: A Sociological Explanation
Romantic suffering explained sociologically: open marriage markets, an abundance of choice and self-worth tied to love make heartbreak a social experience, not only a private failure.

Position

Illouz studies how capitalism has shaped the emotions – and how emotions have shaped capitalism. Consuming the Romantic Utopia (1997) showed that 20th-century romance became bound up with consumption: the restaurant date, the holiday, the gift. In her Adorno Lectures, published in English as Cold Intimacies, she introduced the term “emotional capitalism” for a culture in which economic relations are saturated with emotional language – teamwork, communication, empathy – while intimate relations are organised by economic models of exchange and negotiation. A key role is played by therapeutic discourse, the subject of Saving the Modern Soul (2008): psychology has given modern people a language of self-realisation and emotional competence, but also an endless narrative of suffering and self-improvement. In Why Love Hurts (German 2011, English 2012) she argued against purely psychological explanations that the pain of modern love is socially produced: freedom of choice, online dating and markets of sexual attractiveness make commitment difficult and self-worth insecure. The End of Love (2019) traced “negative relations” – the choice not to choose – and later books analyse the emotions of populism. Her work combines Weber, Bourdieu and the Frankfurt School in a cultural sociology of feeling.

Life & context

Eva Illouz was born in 1961 in Fez, Morocco, and moved with her family to France as a child. She studied sociology, communication and literature in Paris, took a master’s degree in communication at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and her doctorate in communications and cultural studies at the University of Pennsylvania in 1991. After teaching at Tel Aviv University she became professor of sociology at the Hebrew University, where she is now emerita. From 2012 to 2015 she was the first woman president of the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem, and since 2015 she has been directrice d’études at the EHESS in Paris. She gave the Adorno Lectures in Frankfurt in 2004 and has become a prominent voice in public debates, not least on Israeli democracy.