Moira Weigel began researching the history of dating in the early 2010s during a pivotal cultural moment in the U.S. The effects of the Great Recession were still deeply felt, mobile phone apps were taking off, and the internet buzzed with think pieces dissecting the state of modern romance.
“There was this whole discourse about how the recession was impacting men and women differently, undermining so-called traditional gender roles,” said Weigel, assistant professor of comparative literature. “At the same time, there was a lot of conversation about the impact of social media on romantic relationships. The intersection of those topics made me interested in this subject.”
The result was her first book, “Labor of Love: The Invention of Dating” (2016), which sought to challenge some pessimistic ideas that match apps were bringing about the “end of dating” or changing it beyond recognition. Instead, she argued, courtship had evolved with women’s entry into paid work and with consumer capitalism.
Founded as a graduate program in 1904 and joining with the undergraduate Literature Concentration in 2007, Harvard’s Department of Comparative Literature operates at the crossroads of multilingualism, literary study, and media history.
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