Silvia Cataldi, PhD, is Associate Professor of sociology at the Department of Psychology of Development and Socialization Processes of Sapienza University of Rome (Italy). She teaches sociology and research methods on bachelor's and master's degree courses and in the doctoral school. Her research focuses on methodological aspects of social research and emerging cultural and social identity models and she is involved in many European projects. She is a board member of the European Sociological Association 20RN Qualitative Methods, and the coordinator of the international research network Social-One. Among her publications she has co-edited with Iorio two books on social love: Love at the Time of Accounting (2015) and Culture of Peace (2016).

Gennaro Iorio, PhD, is Full Professor of sociology. He is Director of the Department of Political and Social Studies of the University of Salerno (Italy). Expert in the history of sociological thought, he teaches sociology of innovation, common goods, and sustainable development goals on bachelor's and master's degree courses and in the doctoral school. His research projects include urban resilience and prosociality, empathy between sociology and neuroscience, north-south inequalities and social innovation. For almost 20 years he has been studying social love and has published the first avant-garde books on the subject, such as Sociology of Love (2015) now published in three languages, Italian, English and Portuguese.

Introduction

Part I: Overview

Insight

1 When reality challenges sociological imagination: what social love is in a critical perspective
SILVIA CATALDI AND GENNARO IORIO

2 Imagining on the shoulders of giants: a historical selection on the social thought on love
SILVIA CATALDI

Evidence

3 For an empirical study of social love: epistemological and methodogical research approaches
SERENA QUARTA , MARCO PALMIERI AND GIUSEPPE PELLEGRINI

Current issues

4 Social systems and social love: a macro-perspective on the history of civilizations
GENNARO IORIO

5 Social love as utopian and heterotopian experiences in contemporary society
PAULO HENRIQUE MARTINS

PART II: Social love as overabundance

Insight

6 Social love as an approach: notes from the field
SARI HANAFI

Evidence

7 Giving without expectations: the results of the World Love Index
MARCO PALMIERI AND CHIARA IANNACCONE

Current issues

8 Collective action and love
ADRIAN SCRIBANO

9 Social love and social movements in the pandemic
GEOFFREY PLEYERS

PART III: Social love as care of others and the world

Insight

10 Re-imagining cosmopolitics: love as taking care of the world
FILIPE CAMPELLO

Evidence

11 Educational poverty and care for others: a relation between human development and social love
ANDREA GALLELLI , PAOLO CONTINI AND ANGELA MONGELLI

12 Social love in pandemic time: an opportunity to generate and regenerate social relationships
LICIA PAGLIONE AND GIUSEPPE PELLEGRINI

13 Social love in healthcare professionals: some preliminary reflections on a missing issueBARBARA SENA

Current issues

14 Poverty and generative welfare: perspectives for a new approach to social interventionLUIGI GUI AND TIZIANO VECCHIATO

15Post-Covid perspectives: an overview on inequalities and love experiences in Latin America
ROLANDO CRISTAO , MARCELO SALAS AND CLARA DESALVO

PART IV: Social love as universalism

Insight

16 Towards a convivialist society: how to think and act for pluriversalism
ALAIN CAILLÉ

Evidence

17 Universal is plural: The results of a comparative study from secondary sources
FABRIZIO MARTIRE AND PAOLO PARRA SAIANI

Current issues

18 Common goods and institutions as fields of impersonal action
EMANUELE POLIZZI

PART V: Social love as recognition of others

Insight

19 Love in democracy: unfolding sovereignty, resonating common good
ANDRÈ MAGNELLI

Evidence

20 Radical love and forgiveness: re-suturing the social racial wounds in the United States
WILLIAM CALVO QUIRÓS

Current issues

21 Love beyond coloniality: encountering the other, love precarity, and the idiosyncrasies of love from the South
WILLIAM CALVO QUIRÓS, AGNÈS MARIE KEUHO AND ANTONIO MENDES DA COSTA BRAGA

Conclusion
GENNARO IORIO AND SILVIA CATALDI