The Politics of Intimacy

Reviews / Votes

"Even as Anna Durnova creates two utterly compelling empirical case studies, she makes a major theoretical contribution to the sociology of emotion. She conceptualizes public expressions of suffering as a new and powerful discourse of intimacy that challenges institutions of power."
-Jeffrey Alexander, Yale University "This is a fascinating and empirically rich book that is a signature, poignant study on the 'politics of intimacy'. . . the arguments are interesting, provocative, and insightfully persuasive."
-Brent J. Steele, The University of Utah "Anna Durnova's book joins the scholarship on flows of ideas and practices across borders, on emotions and IR, on the body and IR, and on "the everyday" and IR. Her interviews, reviews of media coverage, and other research findings allow her to tell very interesting and analytically rich stories that tease out the relations between government, medical professionals, patients and their loved ones, and contending advocacy organizations."
-Renee Marlin-Bennett, Johns Hopkins University "[The Politics of Intimacy] is challenging, both intellectually and emotionally. It forces us to consider our own plans (or lack of them) for the only certainty in our uncertain existences. Yet in taking many of us out of our comfort zones, the book connects the individual reader to these broader collectives as we too become participants in an important discussion that spans boundaries and borders. If you feel uneasy by the end, there is still some comfort in knowing you are not alone."
-- Critical Policy Studies -- Bill Sisk, Rockefeller College of Public Affairs & Policy at SUNY Albany * Critical Policy Studies * "Durnova's invitation to explore and to centre the concept of intimacy within our liberal institutions and policies - or to even acknowledge the role that emotional experience plays in these - is a necessary engagement during these times."
-LSE Review of Books -- Dr. Danielle House * LSE Review of Books *