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The Hermeneutics of Love

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Higher Education and Love
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Abstract

This chapter focuses on what I call love in action: love made manifest (rendered ostensible) in human practice. I concentrate on the work of three novelists, each of whom—in her or his own way—treat kindness, attentiveness and happiness as essential elements in the constitution of love. Across these three love stories there is an emphasis—as one of the three storytellers puts it—on “the interconnectedness of things”. In attempting to relate insights derived from these very different narratives to the experience of higher education, I map some of what I call “spaces of love”: cosmopolitan spaces, spaces of dialogue, spaces of uncertainty and truthful spaces. These are, I suggest, the spaces which open up the possibility of becoming “a mind in love”.

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Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the editors of this volume for their helpful comments on the first draft of this chapter and for their support and encouragement.

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Nixon, J. (2021). The Hermeneutics of Love. In: de Rijke, V., Peterson, A., Gibbs, P. (eds) Higher Education and Love. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82371-9_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82371-9_10

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-82370-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-82371-9

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