Love as Critique

In this episode Saronik talks to Manasvin Rajagopalan about critical possibilities in varied literary ideations of love.

Manasvin mentions Hannah Arendt’s concept of love as destruction, the concepts of Puram and Akam in classical Tamil poetics, Moliere’s comedies, Plato’s Symposium, the Hebrew Bible, Sappho’s poetry, the story of Shakuntala, and The Aeneid.

Manasvin is a PhD candidate in Comparative Literature at UC Davis , where he writes about questions of identity and world building in Early Modern French and Tamil literature.

Image: An eighteenth century representation of the Dhanasri Ragini held by The Art Institute of Chicago. Public domain artwork.

Music used in promotional material: “The Flute in a Barrel” by Sandro Marinoni and Stefano Roncarolo.