Skip to content
Unidos, Somos Más: CSSH Recognizes Hispanic Heritage Month 2026
Apply
Stories

History of the Self: Love

People in this story

NPR, December 2024

How did love–this thing that’s supposed to be beautiful, magical, transformative–turn into a neverending slog? We went searching for answers, and we found them in surprising places. On today’s show: a time-hopping, philosophical journey into the origins of modern love. (This episode first ran as Love, Throughline)

Guests:

  • Andrea Wulf, historian and author of Magnificent Rebels: The First Romantics and the Invention of The Self
  • Moira Weigel, assistant professor at Northeastern University and author of Labor of Love: The Invention of Dating
  • Veronica Hefner, associate professor and director of the graduate studies in communication at St. Mary’s College of California

Listen at NPR.

More Stories

BORA BORA, FRENCH POLYNESIA - AUGUST 09: Welcome ceremony for the traditional Polynesian double-hulled canoes Hokule'a - a motorless canoe - and Hikianalia - a support canoe on their final stop in French Polynesia as part of the Moananuiākea voyage on August 09, 2025 in Bora Bora, French Polynesia. (Photo by Sylvain Lefevre/Getty Images)

This Hawaiian canoe navigates by the sun, moon and stars. What its mission says about global diplomacy

09.30.2026
Giant Panda of Sichuan, China. Chinese National symbol

China’s ursine statesmen arrive at an American zoo

09.30.2026

Why full employment is like filling a bathtub with water

10.01.26
In the News