Close relationships fulfil the need of an individual to start and keep close relationships with other people. These are main basic needs of a human being. Partnership, family and friendship are all considered to be close relationships. We can find common elements among them but also there are specific differences. Intimacy is by all means one of the main components of close relationships and this work is focused on it. We mention knowledge which can be found in literature, emphasis is put on foreign sources. This work shows results of prototypical study of the term intimacy, which reveals layman structure of this term and offers, apart from traditional definitions, a different view of the subject, especially the contrasts which are typical for close relationships in partnerships, family relationships and friendships. Key words: Close relationships, intimacy, prototypical approach, prototypic scale

The group of 7 paper objects, the whole cluster measures about 180 x 100 x 100cm. Hang down from the ceiling. Different kinds of paper, colled, folded, crumpled, paper-mashe. Central composition (6 small objects touching gently the big one), on the border more realistic, in the centre more imaginary. The realistic forms I used - clover, cauliflower, rotten pear. Focus on colours, fragility of plants and material. Garden as a metaphore of human body. Centre - heart - tree. Love Entering into the installation.

With increasing globalization, researchers are beginning to document the changing patterns of family life in collectivistic societies undergoing rapid economic development, such as India. With these changes, expectations of romantic relationships are also shifting as individuals re-calibrate their gender roles and attitudes towards romantic relationships to meet the challenges of modern society. Yet, not enough is known about the younger generation of collectivist youth and their evolving romantic habits and preferences. Therefore, the overarching goal of this thesis was to gain a more comprehensive understanding of cultural and familial influences in selecting a marital partner, maintaining a relationship, endorsing romantic beliefs, and anticipating future difficulties in marital life. In collectivist cultures, families tend to be characterized by respect for parental authority and strong, interdependent ties. Do these aspects of collectivism exert countervailing pressures on mate choices and relationship quality? In Study 1, I tested my predictions on a British sample by dividing participants into high or low collectivist groups based on their heritage cultural background, whereas in Study 2 I recruited participants from India and the United States. In both studies, I found that collectivism was associated with greater acceptance of parental influence over mate choice, thereby driving relationship commitment down, but collectivism was also associated with stronger family ties (referred to as family allocentrism), which drove commitment up (Study 2). Along similar lines, Study 1 found that collectivists’ greater acceptance of parental influence on mate choice contributed to their reduced relationship passion, whereas Study 2 found that their greater family allocentrism may have enhanced their passion. Study 2 also revealed that collectivists may have reported a smaller discrepancy between their own preferences for mates high in warmth and trustworthiness and their perception of their parents’ preferences for these qualities because of their stronger family allocentrism. However, their higher tolerance of parental V influence may have also contributed to a smaller discrepancy in their mate preferences versus their perceptions of their parents’ preferences for qualities signifying status and resources. Studies 3 and 4 moved away from familial dynamics and took a closer look at the cultural values of collectivism and gender role ideology. Previous studies have established that Indians tend to be greater in collectivism and gender role traditionalism than Americans. The purpose of Studies 3 and 4 was to examine whether these differences explained further cultural differences in romantic beliefs, traditional mate preferences, and anticipation of future difficulties in marital life. Results for both studies revealed that Indians reported greater collectivism than Americans and, in turn, held stronger romantic beliefs. Additionally, Indians’ greater collectivism, endorsement of more traditional gender roles and benevolent sexism in part predicted their preferences for a marital partner possessing traditional characteristics. Collectivism and gender role traditionalism accounted for Indians’ heightened concerns about encountering future difficulties in marital life in Study 3, while in Study 4 only collectivism explained these concerns. Overall, the results from these four studies shed light on the processes underlying cultural differences in relationship attitudes and preferences, and point to the need for greater cultural awareness and sensitivity to the diversity that exists in relationship functioning across societies.

Reality TV dating shows have increased in popularity during the last decade. The producers of this kind of reality TV tend to claim that their shows represent a true portrayal of social reality. Viewing the world from a social constructivist perspective, social reality and behavior are understood as social constructions. From that perspective the content of dating shows are viewed as constructions shaped by, for example, the producers. The purpose of this study is to examine how love ideals and gender roles are constructed within the Swedish dating shows Farmers wants a wife [Bonde söker fru] and Faith, hope and love [Tro, hopp och kärlek].Further this study aims to compare the constructions from each show. To investigate this, an adjusted version of Norman Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis has been used. There is not much previous sociological research done concerning reality TV in general, or dating TV more specifically. However, other disciplines have investigated these fields more. For example, several feminist studies have shown that dating TV shows enforces stereotypic gender roles, and a research study in psychology has shown that dating shows may affect attitudes toward sexual behavior among youths. The study shows that the constructions about love and gender roles are similar in both dating shows. In the shows constructed ideal of love, intimacy is one of the most important things. This love ideal could be understood in the context of Anthony Giddens theory of the pure relationship. The gender role constructions in the shows contain contradictions. In many aspects the constructed gender roles reflect upon the show’s love ideal, in sense of equality and the importance of mutual commitment to the dating process. But in some ways there are more traditional gender role expressions, for example women’s criticism towards passivity amongst men. / Tv-sända dejtingprogram har blivit en alltmer populär företeelse de senaste åren. Produktionerna bakom denna form av dokusåpor anser ofta att programmen speglar en sann social verklighet. Utifrån ett socialkonstruktivistiskt perspektiv förstås samhället och socialt beteende som sociala konstruktioner. Med ett sådant perspektiv ses skildringar i dejtingprogram som en konstruktion formad av bland annat produktionen. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur kärlek och könsroller konstrueras i de svenska upplagorna av dejtingprogrammen Bonde söker fru och Tro, hopp och kärlek. Vidare syftar studien till att göra en jämförelse av programmens konstruktioner rörande kärlek och könsroller. För att undersöka detta har studien utförts enligt en anpassning av Norman Faircloughs kritiska diskursanalys. En översikt av tidigare forskning visar att det inte finns mycket sociologisk forskning på området dokusåpor i allmänhet, och dejtingprogram mer specifikt. Angränsande discipliner har dock utforskat problemområdet mer. Bland annat har flera feministiska studier visat att stereotypa könroller förstärks i dejtingprogram och en studie i psykologi visade att ungdomars konsumtion av dejtingprogram kan påverka deras attityder kring sexuellt beteende. Denna studie visar att de båda programmens konstruktioner, gällande kärlek och könsroller, har stora likheter. I dejtingprogrammens genomsyrande kärleksideal betonas bland annat vikten av intimitet. Detta ideal kan förstås utifrån Anthony Giddens begrepp det rena förhållandet. Studien visar även att könrollskonstruktionerna i programmen präglas av en slitning. Till stor del går könsrollerna i linje med dejtingprogrammens kärlekskonstruktioner, då könsrollerna utmärks av en jämlikhetssträvan och vikten av ömsesidigt engagemang i dejtingen. Samtidigt innehåller könsrollkonstruktionerna bland annat kvinnors kritik mot passiva män, vilket kan förstås som ett uttryck för mer traditionella könsroller.

The present essay undertakes a structuralist analysis of Kazuo Ishiguro's novel Never Let Me Go, drawing upon the actantial analysis of plot developed by A. J. Greimas, as developed by Louis Hébert. My central claim is that the plot revolves around the protagonist's contradictory desire to find love with her childhood friend Tommy, while at the same time retaining her friendship with another childhood friend, Ruth. The essay suggests that this contradiction contributes to the complex plot where the characters' actantial functions shift frequently. Furthermore, the essay makes a distinction between two different perspectives, namely Kathy's as protagonist, and Kathy's as narrator. This distinction elucidates how narration in Never Let Me Go affects the plot.

A investigação a que se propõe o presente trabalho volta-se à possibilidade de se alcançar uma noção existencial de amor, a partir da análise do percurso fenomenológico trilhado pelo filósofo alemão Martin Heidegger, bem como ponderar a sua importância para a busca do justo. Apartando-se de toda interpretação psicossubjetiva e do âmbito axiológico das apreciações e, portanto, distanciando-se de toda sentimentalidade e comodidade dos sentimentos, tal como recomendara Heidegger nas preleções do semestre de inverno entre 1928 e 1929, o amor enquanto fenômeno é, aqui, perquirido com vistas a uma determinação ontológico-fundamental do Dasein. Todavia, para que esta busca se desenvolva de modo coeso ao pensamento do filósofo, é imprescindível que se lance o olhar ao caminho que levara a constituição de seu pensamento. Dessa forma, não se pode ignorar a proveniência teológica de seu pensar, sobretudo no que tange à interpretação da antropologia agostiniana greco-cristã, por Heidegger redirecionada às bases essenciais da ontologia aristotélica. Com efeito, fora a partir de uma passagem de Agostinho, reproduzida por Heidegger em uma carta endereçada à Hannah Arendt, que o filósofo alemão assinalara o amor como um volo, ut sis, um modo de abertura que libera e deixa-ser o que é no movimento mesmo de seu por-vir. Ademais, a pergunta pelo amor deve estabelecer-se de modo a lançar-nos ao que é mais próprio ao amor, e será no retorno à experiência do pensamento grego arcaico e pré-socrático, não como mera recuperação histórica, mas como um salto retroativo para onde provém o pensar do ser como presença constante, que o termo recobrará a sua essência. Como um deixar-ser o que é, o amor, então, revelar-se-á como um modo originário de acesso à verdade, e como tal sobressairá a sua importância, enquanto caminho hermenêutico, para a investigação do justo. / The research that proposes this work back to the possibility of reaching an existential notion of love, from the analysis of the phenomenological path trodden by the German philosopher Martin Heidegger and consider its importance to the search of the fair. Detaching itself from all psycho-subjective interpretation and axiological framework of assessments and thus distancing itself from all sentimentality and comfort of feelings, as recommended Heidegger in the lectures of winter semester between 1928 and 1929, love as a phenomenon is, here, investigated with a view to a fundamental ontological-determination of the Dasein. However, for this search develop into the cohesive way to the thought of the philosopher, it is essential to move the eye to the path that led him to build his thinking. Thus, one can not ignore the theological origin of your thinking, especially regarding the interpretation of the greek-christian augustinian anthropology, redirected by Heidegger to the essential foundations of Aristotelian ontology. Indeed, it was from a passage of Augustine, remembered by Heidegger in a letter to Hannah Arendt, that the German philosopher pointed out love as a volo, ut sis, a way of opening that frees and let-be which is the same movement of your to-come. Moreover, the question of love should be established in order to drive us to what is most proper to love, and will be through the return to the experience of ancient greek and pre-socratic thought, not as mere historical recovery, but as a retroactive jump where comes the thought of being as constant presence, that the term return to his essence. As a letting-be what is, love, then, will prove to be an original way of access to the truth, and as such will raise its importance, while hermeneutical way, to research the fair.

Este trabalho filosófico tem por escopo explicitar a influência do autor renascentista Leão Hebreu, com base na obra Dialoghi d\'amore, sobre o pensador seiscentista Espinosa, mais particularmente o conceito de amor e sua relação com o conhecimento no Breve Tratado, obra espinosana que esboça, ainda que minimamente, a estrutura que se solidificará posteriormente na Ética. A relação entre estes dois autores, além do problema sobre a natureza do amor como paixão da beatitude, implica também reconhecer a mudança entre dois ethos filosóficos distintos: Renascimento e Modernidade. Se um pensador renascentista influencia um moderno, a negação dos seus antecessores feita pelos modernos pode não ser, pois, uma crítica aniquiladora, capaz de apagar todos os resquícios de um modo de pensar supostamente ultrapassado. Daí se indagar: o que há de moderno na renascença e o que há de renascentista na modernidade? Na resolução desta indagação de dupla dimensão, justifica-se o breve excurso pelo pensamento cartesiano e a proposição da concepção filosófica de leitor como um dos traços distintivos de fundação da filosofia moderna. O pensador moderno parece ser, antes de tudo, um leitor, o bom leitor, ou nos termos de Espinosa: o leitor-filósofo. / This philosophical work has as a scope to make explicit the influence of the renaissance author Leo the Hebrew, based on the work Dialoghi d\'amore, upon the 17th century thinker Spinoza, particularly the concept of love and its relation with knowledge in the Short Treatise, Spinozian work that outlines, even if minimally, the structure that will be later solidified in the Ethics. The relation between these two authors, besides the problem of the nature of love as passion and beatitude, implicates also to recognize the change between two distinct philosophical ethoses: Renaissance and Modernity. If a renaissance thinker influences a modern one, the negation of its predecessor by moderns cannot be, though, an annihilating critique, able to delete all the remnants of a supposedly outdated way of thinking. Therefore the inquiry: what is there of modern in Renaissance and what is there of renaissance in Modernity? The resolution of this bi-dimensional question justifies the short passage through the Cartesian thought and the proposition of the philosophical concept of reader as one of the distinctive features of the foundation of modern philosophy. The modern thinker seems to be, first of all, a reader, a good one, or in terms of Spinoza: the philosopher-reader.

O que quer uma mulher? Essa questão permaneceu enigmática na obra de Freud. Alguns psicanalistas apontaram a maternidade como uma das respostas para a insondável questão do ser... mulher. O campo privilegiado da discussão desta tese é a articulação entre a feminilidade e a maternidade, num percurso de investigação dos textos freudianos, das teorizações pós-freudianas e das formulações lacanianas. Consiste em um estudo teórico-clínico, motivado por questões surgidas na experiência psicanalítica com sujeitos femininos, diante dos impasses do ser mãe e do ser mulher. Freud entendeu a maternidade como caudatária da função fálica na menina, mas manteve em aberto a questão sobre o enigma da feminilidade. A querela do falo permaneceu com os pós-freudianos; que enfatizaram o papel da mãe, a partir do discurso sobre o amor materno. Lacan, ao postular um mais-além do pai, realizou a promoção da sexualidade da mulher, enfatizando o desejo da mulher na mãe. Para destacar a disjunção entre a mãe e a mulher, esse estudo realiza a análise da histeria no romance Memória de duas jovens esposas (Honoré de Balzac, 1955) e da paranóia, a partir do Emílio (Rousseau, 1762) e do caso Aimée (Jacques Lacan, 1932). Para concluir, salienta a divisão entre a mãe e a mulher, articulando-as às vertentes de desejo e gozo, próprios aos sujeitos femininos. / What does a woman want? This question has remained enigmatic in Freud´s work. Some psychoanalysts indicated maternity as one of the answers for the unsoundable question of being... a woman. The privileged discussion topic of this study is the articulation between femininity and maternity, in an investigation path of Freudian texts, of post-Freudian theories and Lacanian formulations. It consists of a clinical-theoretical study, motivated by questions originated in the psychoanalytical experience with female subjects, in face of the impasses of being a mother and a woman. Freud understood maternity as being submissive to the phallic function of a girl, but kept in open the question related to the enigma of femininity. The indictment of phallus remained with the post-Freudians who emphasized the role of the mother, from the discourse on maternal love. Lacan, when postulating on something else more than a father, promoted women´s sexuality, emphasizing the woman´s wish in the mother. To point out the disjunction between the woman and the mother, this study proposes an analysis of histery in the novel Memoirs of Two Young Wives (Honoré de Balzac, 1955) and of paranóia, from Émile (Rousseau, 1762) and also in Aimée´s case (Jacques Lacan, 1932). All in all, it stresses the division between the mother and the woman, articulating them to the slopes of desire and joy, totally related to female subjects.

Este trabalho investiga discursos e modelos de amor romântico construídos em filmes do cinema hollywoodiano, especialmente nas décadas de 1990 e 2000. Debate-se o papel do cinema na constituição de referências sobre a idealização e a experiência de relacionamentos amorosos e como esse contribui para reproduzir crenças e valores morais a respeito do amor que são pertinentes à modernidade e suas especificidades sociais, culturais e históricas. Nisso, observam-se no período analisado citações constantes de produções de outras épocas, indicando, especialmente em um contexto de grande presença de mídias audiovisuais na vida cotidiana, que o próprio cinema se utiliza como referência ao tratar do tema amor e reproduz isso como algo corriqueiro e culturalmente estabelecido. / This research investigates the discourses and models of romantic love constructed in Hollywood movies, more specifically in the 90s and 2000s. One argue the role of cinema in constituting references about the idealization and experience of love relationships and how this cinema contributes on reproducing beliefs and moral values about love that are pertinent to modernity and its social, cultural and historical specificities. Thus, in the analysed period, it could be observed constant quotations of films from other times, suggesting, especially in a context of great presence of audiovisual medias in everyday life, that cinema uses itself as reference when it comes about love and reproduces it as a commonplace, culturally established.

Thesis advisor: Roberto Goizueta / The injunction to `love our neighbor' is a constitutive element of any Christian ethic. It is frequently found embedded within the triadic formulation of `love of God, love of neighbor, and love of self.' Because this injunction must always be contextualized within each historical period it was important to explore how one should love the neighbor in our contemporary context. The dissertation begins by exploring the contemporary conditions of pluralism and interdependence. In this context we realize that love of neighbor must manifest in an encounter with the other. The project shows some current models of encountering the other. In showing the inadequacies of each model I also introduce the work of Johann B. Metz and Enrique Dussel. I then construct a process entitled Agapic Solidarity which seeks to use some aspects of the political theology of Metz and the liberation philosophy of Dussel to formulate an authentic encounter with the other. This process honors both elements; the condition of pluralism and the acknowledgement of interdependence. In doing this we begin the process of loving the neighbor which is so central to any Christian ethic. In the conclusion of the dissertation I show some possible applications of the process. The final component is a case study of the undocumented migrant in the United States of America as a demonstration of the process in action. In this way, it shows how the ethical demand can be enacted and embodied within a particular, concrete ethical issue. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2013. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.