Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper posits an (impossible) politics of love through an examination of Soren Kierkegaard's Works of Love, which (it is argued) is perhaps one of Kierkegaard's most political works. Jacques Derrida's The Politics of Friendship and Carl Schmitt's The Concept of the Political, among other works, helps to demonstrate the political nature of Kierkegaard's model of Christian love.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: When does a transnational community become a diaspora and why? This paper attempts to answer these questions by exploring the social constructed aspect of diaspora with a case study of Korean diaspora in the United States. The phenomenon of Korean diaspora encompasses a set of cultural, social and post-colonial relations between Korea and the United States for the past 100 years, as well as the internal racial relations and power structure within the United States. The unequal relationship between Korea and the United States has not only formed the motivational factors that promote Korean immigration to the United States, but also influenced the ways in which Korean immigrants experience America and position themselves in the United States. The racial hierarchy in the United States fosters a critical preconditional context in which Korean Americans maintain or seek out their ethnic identity and culture. The key argument in this paper is that Korean Americans’ retention or revival of diasporic identity is not so much a consequence of Koreans Americans’ inherent desire to maintain their ethnic heritage but rather an inevitable phenomenon in white-privileged society that marginalizes non-whites from mainstream social scenes.

Publication Type: Session Paper
Abstract: Families talk about everyday issues from the weather to social concerns (Wood & Duck, 2006); but this study proposes that family communication also socializes about how to express love to others. A sample of 196 matched dyads of undergraduates and one of their parents completed two instruments; the Love Attitudes Scale (Hendrick & Hendrick, 1990) and the Revised Family Communication Patterns Inventory (Ritchie & Fitzpatrick, 1990), along with three open-ended questions about family communication practices. Triangulation of methods revealed a relationship between family communication and all six young adult love attitudes. Fathers’ love attitudes predicted five of six young adult love attitudes: Eros, Ludus, Pragma, Mania, and Agape. Free responses exposed five sources of knowledge about love, including family, friends, media, past relationship experience, and church. Results suggest that fathers may represent an understudied influence on young adult love attitudes, and that family communication may play an important role in the young adults’ preferred expressions of love.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Burke's description of literature as "equipment for living" is a warrant for reflecting on the relation between speech and love expressed in Plato's Phaedrus and Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, comparing Plato's speeches on love and Austen's portrayal of marriage proposals. Stanley Cavell's concept of remarriage helps to account for Austen's treatment of love as an intimacy of talk between equals, distinguishing it from Plato's love of teacher for student.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: “Children learn about attachment, love and security from their early caregivers, typically their parents (sic)...these earliest lessons are linked in some ways to adult abilities to forge successful relationships” (Inman-Amos, Hendrick, & Hendrick, 1994).
From the research on family and romantic relationships, it has been found that both experiences gained through interaction with family members and the way those experiences are processed cognitively impact attributions about relationships both positively and negatively (Bryant & Conger, 2002). This study used a matched pairs sample of 76 undergraduates and their parents to test for (a) a family communication orientation and (b) a love style connection between two generations. A combination of two instruments plus five relational and seven demographic questions are used. Utilizing both the (a) Revised Family Communication Patterns (RFCP) Inventory (Ritchie & Fitzpatrick, 1990) and the (b) Love Attitudes Scale (LAS; Hendrick & Hendrick, 1990), it was found that parent conformity-orientation is predictive of both conversation and conformity-orientations of their young adult children. In particular, as the parents’ conformity within their family increased (the desire for children to obey the rules of the home as established by the parents), the young adults’ reported lower family conversation-orientation which translates into less open discussion of ideas. Parents’ and young adults’ scores were significantly different in four of the six love styles: Eros, Ludus, Pragma, and Mania. Further, it was found that parent conversation-orientation is predictive of Mania love style among young adult children while the young adult’s conversation-orientation is predictive of Pragma love style.