Love Letters - Saving Romance in the Digital Age - Review - Volume 15 - Issue 1

Sep 15, 2026

Uploaded by Rizky

This review evaluates Michelle Janning’s Love Letters: Saving Romance in the Digital Age, positioned within the Routledge Series for Creative Teaching and Learning in Anthropology. The book treats love letters as everyday objects and examines both “curatorial” practices for storage and how digital versus paper formats reshape romantic expression. Across chapters on digitization, space, and time, it uses survey evidence to explore material behavior, revisit patterns, privilege, gender differences, and age-related tendencies, concluding with a framework of personalization, pace, preservation, privacy, and place.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryPresentations

FormatPDF

Pages3

Reading Time1 min

AccessFree to download

Review overview

The book’s focus and definitions

Curatorial practices and technology

Chapter highlights: digitization, space, and time

Final chapter framework and classroom value

Janning, Michelle. Love Letters: Saving Romance in the Digital Age. Routledge, 2018. Pp. 122. US $55.99 (paperback). ISBN 9781315166001. Review by Marisa Mills Volume 15, Issue 1: July 2026 [http://www.jprstudies.org](http://www.jprstudies.org) [https://doi.org/10.70138/OWKV8182](https://doi.org/10.70138/OWKV8182) Michelle Janning’s Love Letters: Saving Romance in the Digital Age is part of the Routledge Series for Creative Teaching and Learning in Anthropology. According to the series foreword, this series is intended to help undergraduate students learn more about culture and society through everyday objects, such as money, coffee culture, and baseball gloves (xii) . Janning approaches the love letter as one of these everyday objects. Janning’s book explores two subjects: first, the “curatorial” aspects of how love letters are stored; and second,“the impact of digital and love letter format” with the aim of “add[ing] to our understanding of the impact of technology on contemporary human relationships and on the cultural definition of romantic love”(xiii) . The book’s first chapter “The Stuff of Love”sets the foundation for her argument. She defines a love letter as being a written expression which is “exchanged with someone else” to express “romantic love, intimacy, affection, or sexual interest” (6) . Janning also argues that a study of love letters necessitates an understanding of culture, which she characterizes as “dynamic, produced by people in their everyday lives both individually and collectively” (14) . While defining terms is the expected beginning of any argument, Janning does so in an accessible, almost conversational way. Given the intended audience of undergraduate students, this way of writing makes the first chapter an excellent model for students who are writing a case study and who might be unaware of how to get started. Janning’s second chapter “The Digitization of Love” examines how “digital or paper format matters in people’s love letter curatorial practices” and “how group inequalities and privilege (access to valuable resources that come about because of group membership) may shape these practices”(17). Janning shares some insightful findings about material and digital cultures from her survey of 373 respondents (24) . For example, she observes that “people are more likely to save and revisit paper love letters than digital ones” but also that people do not frequently revisit old love letters (25). The results of her study and its significance are clearly laid out in a readable way and is something which—like her defining terms—could serve as model for students who are doing their own case studies. Another aspect of the chapter which students and professors may find useful is that Janning uses the concept of privilege in a practical context and as applied to a specific situation, which demonstrates how privilege might be used differently by sociologists and anthropologists as opposed to a layperson or media outlet. The third chapter “Space Matters” addresses the practical aspects of where people store their love letters. While this chapter seems at first glance to be deceptively simple, Janning successfully convinces readers that the matter of space is not entirely simple. Something which students and scholars will likely appreciate about this chapter is that Janning addresses gender differences in how love letters are stored and how often they are visited, and some of her findings may surprise. For example, Janning notes that while women are more likely to save love letters and mementos for previous relationships, men are actually more likely to revisit their saved love letters (44). Janning’s look at gender in this chapter has the potential tobe very useful to sociology and anthropology professors, in particular, because she discusses gender differences as applied to a rather nonpolarizing topic. Her fourth chapter“Time Matters” looks at another demographical factor, namely age. Jan

FAQs

What does Janning argue about love letters in the context of everyday objects?

She treats the love letter as an everyday object and studies how it is stored, revisited, and curated as part of culture and social life.

How does the book compare digital and paper love letters?

It examines how format shapes curatorial practices and the meaning of romantic love, including differences in saving and revisiting behaviors.

Which framework does the book propose at the end?

It proposes five components—personalization, pace, preservation, privacy, and place—to understand fears and cultural values tied to digitization.

Sep 15, 2026

Uploaded by Rizky