Love Power in the Rear-View Mirror: Interview with Anna G. Jónasdóttir

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size AcknowledgmentsThis text is an edited and translated version of an interview made in Swedish by Lena Gunnarsson on 7 February 2023 in Anna G. Jónasdóttir’s home in Örebro, Sweden. Alessandro Johansson transcribed the audio recorded interview and Gunnarsson translated and edited the transcription in dialogue with Jónasdóttir.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1. Translated from Swedish by Gunnarsson.Additional informationNotes on contributorsAnna G. JónasdóttirAnna G. Jónasdóttir is professor emerita in Gender Studies at Örebro University, Sweden. Her research interests are critical analyses and constructive development of ideas in social and political theory, feminist and more generally. In particular, she considers (i) the recent emergence of serious questions and arguments in many academic disciplines about the significance of love as a social and political source of power in our time; and (ii) different understandings of power, especially the question whether/how the plural human powers/capacities fit in theoretically with common views of power.Lena GunnarssonLena Gunnarsson is Associate Professor in Gender Studies at Örebro University, Sweden. In her doctoral thesis and subsequent works she engages with Jónasdóttir’s theory of love power to further conceptualizations of the relationship between gender, power and love. She has also made interventions in the areas of feminist theory, social theory and philosophy of science, drawing on critical realist philosophy to challenge poststructuralist frameworks. Gunnarsson’s recent and current projects cover topics such as sexual consent, sugar dating and involuntary singlehood.