Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Date of Degree
2-2024
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Program
English
Advisor
Karl Steel
Committee Members
Patricia T. Clough
Matthew K. Gold
Subject Categories
Communication Technology and New Media | Continental Philosophy | Critical and Cultural Studies | Digital Humanities | Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies | Feminist Philosophy | Gender and Sexuality | Other Arts and Humanities | Other Film and Media Studies | Science and Technology Studies | Social Media | Theory, Knowledge and Science
Keywords
algorithmic love, posthumanism, media studies, affect, more-than-human, digital technology
Abstract
This dissertation investigates the highly computed and accelerated experiences of digital love as well as their cultural and artistic representations in order to shed light on the human and more-than-human entanglements producing the algorithmic love experience. The recent turn to love in critical theory and cultural studies examines how love circulates in neoliberal societies and in the subjective processes of the users, foregrounding the control of populations and the very much lamented “end of love” (Illouz 2019). My study of love supplements the neoliberalist critique of algorithmic love with a posthuman and media theory approach that attends to the material capacities of digital technologies reorganizing the love experience. Refusing simply to reassert the ‘naturalness’ of love outside dating apps, my project offers a more complex paradigm that accounts for the restructuring time, the body, or human subjectivity in the algorithmic love condition, legitimizing the digital experience and exploring new avenues for “inhabiting” romantic platforms differently (Chun 2016).
Holding the tension between the neoliberalist character and the liberatory potential of digital hypermediation, I ground my intervention in the melancholic critique and against the nostalgic attachment of critical theory and sociology to the modern subject in love: by pointing at the shortcomings of sociological literature when studying feelings, satisfaction, or algorithmic romance today (Chapter 2), by deconstructing notions of nature and interrogating the nature-artificial, human-machine binary and possibilities of posthuman embodiment (Chapter 3), and by delving into feminist philosophies of computation in an exploration of the discourse around Large Language Models and what it means for our understanding of love as an algorithmic force (Chapter 4). Two interludes offer a media analysis of the algorithmic love discourse in both popular TV shows and mainstream news outlets to offer a mixed-media approach to how the algorithmic love discourse is sustained and circulates in the popular imaginary.
Recommended Citation
Moyano Ariza, Sandra, "Algorithmic Love: Twenty-First Century Organizations of the Romantic" (2024). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/5661
Graduate Center users:
To read this work, log in to your GC ILL account and place a thesis request.
Non-GC Users:
See the GC’s lending policies to learn more.
Included in
Communication Technology and New Media Commons, Continental Philosophy Commons, Critical and Cultural Studies Commons, Digital Humanities Commons, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Feminist Philosophy Commons, Gender and Sexuality Commons, Other Arts and Humanities Commons, Other Film and Media Studies Commons, Science and Technology Studies Commons, Social Media Commons, Theory, Knowledge and Science Commons