Romantic Futures

Romantic Futures is a collection which explores the significance of futurity in British Romanticism from a comparative perspective in three defining manifestations: the future as conscious legacy, by which is meant both influences or continuities and the (anticipations of) impact on the future; the future as revealed by prophecy, whether via religious figures or superstitions; and a meditation on the temporality of the future, or the future as a concept. The book brings together a wide range of theoretical and disciplinary perspectives: from utopian studies, history, religion, and cultural theory to future studies, neuroscience, video games, and art history. Aiming to increase and diversify current critical engagement and highlight the contemporary relevance of the Romantics’ multivalent preoccupation with the future, this collection renews the dialogue between Romanticism and our critical relation to its contemporaneity, especially as it speaks to current understandings of the future in the sciences, arts, and humanities.

The romantic lives of emerging adults are often baffling and contradictory. While they prize committed and authentic relationships, they appear to be reluctant participants. They prefer to foster ambiguity in their romantic relationships, even as they value honesty and clarity. There is, at once, a valuing of long-term as well as a decentering of romantic relationships. Although our current understanding is incomplete, this text grapples with these perplexing questions. In attempting to understand emerging adults and their romantic lives, researchers must consider the challenging economic conditions in which today's emerging adults find themselves. With an emphasis on commitment and sacrifice and their centrality to one's readiness for a long-term relationship, this book reviews the main milestones in transitioning from an "I" identity to a "we" identity and discusses the concepts of choice and risk. Further, the book examines structures such as asymmetrically committed relationships, cohabitation, and marriage through the lens of commitment, risk, and risk avoidance. Probing extensively into the romantic lives of emerging adults -- their attitudes, values and expectations -- this text examines some of the developmental and contextual realities against which romantic attachment must be viewed. Critical topics such as casual and sexual experiences and relationships, integration of work and love, breakups, marriage, going solo, and social media and its influences are considered. The commonality and the individuality of the emerging adults presented throughout this text contribute to a rich understanding of emerging adults and how they live and love.

After months of refusing, I finally agreed to make the move to Alrick Falls. My family thought it was best - that a new scene would be good for me - and I was sick of having the same conversation. So here I am, and the plan is simple. Smile through each day and avoid her at all costs. It's perfect. Until the cocksure quarterback comes into play. The last thing I want is his crooked grin and dark brown eyes focused on me. Yet here he is, constantly in my space, pushing me, daring me to care. Telling me what I think and feel, as if he knows. He doesn't know anything. And I plan to keep it that way. He's the persistent playboy who refuses to walk away. I'm the impassive new girl with nothing left to give. Things are about to get complicated.

From the beginning of time, humans have been driven by both a fear of the unknown and a curiosity to know. We have always yearned to know what lies ahead, whether threat or safety, scarcity or abundance. Throughout human history, our forebears tried to create certainty in the unknown, by seeking to influence outcomes with sacrifices to gods, preparing for the unexpected with advice from oracles, and by reading the stars through astrology. As scientific methods improve and computer technology develops we become ever more confident of our capacity to predict and quantify the future by accumulating and interpreting patterns form the past, yet the truth is there is still no certainty to be had. In this Very Short Introduction Jennifer Gidley considers some of our most burning questions: What is "the future "?; Is the future a time yet to come?; Or is it a utopian place?; Does the future have a history?; Is there only one future or are there many possible futures? She asks if the future can ever be truly predicted or if we create our own futures - both hoped for and feared - by our thoughts, feelings, and actions, and concludes by analysing how we can learn to study the future. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Sex in the Middle East and North Africa examines the sexual practices, politics, and complexities of the modern Arab world. Short chapters feature a variety of experts in anthropology, sociology, health science, and cultural studies. Many of the chapters are based on original ethnographic and interview work with subjects involved in these practices and include their voices. The book is organized into three sections: Single and Dating, Engaged and Married, and It's Complicated. The allusion to categories of relationship status on social media is at once a nod to the compulsion to categorize, recognition of the many ways that categorization is rarely straightforward, and acknowledgment that much of the intimate lives described by the contributors is mediated by online technologies.

The notion of “happily ever after” has been ingrained in many of us since childhood—meet someone, date, have the big white wedding, and enjoy your well-deserved future. But why do we buy into this idea? Is love really all we need? Author Laurie Essig invites us to flip this concept of romance on its head and see it for what it really is—an ideology that we desperately cling to as a way to cope with the fact that we believe we cannot control or affect the societal, economic, and political structures around us. From climate change to nuclear war, white nationalism to the worship of wealth and conspicuous consumption—as the future becomes seemingly less secure, Americans turn away from the public sphere and find shelter in the private. Essig argues that when we do this, we allow romance to blind us to the real work that needs to be done—building global movements that inspire a change in government policies to address economic and social inequality.

If the present alienation of mind from nature, i.e., the Cartesian reality principle, is to be overcome, there surely must be a climate of extreme depression amounting in many quarters to despair One way or another there is an opportunity here for a good writer who should fill out in terms of concrete events and experiences the issues If a society is really faced with startling changes and fairly imminent ones (and there is a good deal of evidence that ours is) it cannot be amiss for a few people here and there to be peering ahead, however inadequately, by way of preparation for them. Owen Barfield: The Coming Trauma of Materialism

"Romantic Futures is a collection which explores the significance of futurity in British Romanticism from a comparative perspective in three defining manifestations: the future as conscious legacy, by which is meant both influences or continuities and the (anticipations of) impact on the future; the future as revealed by prophecy, whether via religious figures or superstitions; and, a meditation on the temporality of the future, or the future as a concept. The book brings together a wide range of theoretical and disciplinary perspectives: from utopian studies, history, religion and cultural theory to future studies, neuroscience, video games and art history. Aiming to increase and diversify current critical engagement and highlight the contemporary relevance of the Romantics' multivalent preoccupation with the future, this collection renews the dialogue between Romanticism and our critical relation to its contemporaneity, especially as it speaks to current understandings of the future in the sciences, arts and humanities"--