For many Americans, marriage remains a compelling personal choice, one that continues to find broad cultural support. Yet, scholars have underscored the "disestablishment" of marriage, that is, its weakening enforcement by the state and other institutions. The other side to this trend has been the rise of an alternative "relationship-centered" culture whose core is the quest for intimacy. Among its chief features is the absence of authoritative rules governing intimate choice. Whether it's decisions about partner selection (class, race, gender, nationality, religion), living separately or together, having children, cohabiting or marrying, or being single or partnered, intimate life is becoming a field of choice and pluralization. Intimacies brings together leading thinkers and scholars in critical social studies (social sciences, feminism, queer studies) and psychoanalysis in order to explore diverse forms of intimacies in contemporary America.
