Let's write about love... Rediscovering a lost art | Sonia Cancian | TEDxLausanne

In 1834, about 5 letters were mailed per person per year in England. Today, we receive more email than we have time to read. Love them or hate them, we blast others and are bombarded in return with social messages. Is our ability to connect massively and instantaneously making us feel any closer to each other? Or, are we now also falling into the trap of what George Bernard Shaw had warned us: “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”?

In the talk, Sonia will share with us the discoveries in her research on how couples and families separated by migration wrote through letters about their joy and pain of love. If we pick up pen and paper to write to our loved ones, what would we write…?

Canadian historian, Sonia Cancian studies how migration has shaped gender, family, and emotional dynamics of migrants and their significant others in Canada and Italy in the 20th century. She is best known as an expert in migrant letters, and especially love letters written in contexts of migration with the publication of numerous articles and her book, Families, Lovers, and their Letters: Italian Postwar Migration to Canada (University of Manitoba Press, 2010). She is currently completing a manuscript on a collection of love letters written by an Italian couple who were separated as a result of migration in 1948. Sonia is project leading the Digitizing Immigrant Letters Project at the University of Minnesota's Immigration History Research Center and she teaches at Zayed University in Dubai.

[roboteen]

Wrote my first one while I was in basic. Received them in basic too. Getting those letters back then was a what I woke up every morning looking forward to. I still have all of her letters and drawings she sent me, some hanging on my wall, my night stand and my livingroom table. Anytime I'm stressed out, anytime I miss her, even when in happy I read those letters. Those sheets of paper will forever be some of my most treasured items.

[khiabetgama]

I sent my boyfriend my first love letter, we live in the same city but there’s certain feelings that I cannot express in person. I can’t wait till he gets it. ❤️

[gabrielakarl]

There really isn't anything more romantic than a well written love letter.

[nkanyisokambula]

Underrated Ted take on the way technology has killed some effect on communication because of the instant messaging system, where you just about write about anything. THANK YOU!!!

[beonlife]

Love letters are always touching to read, in a way the feelings once written down suddenly become enduring....which is maybe the interesting aspect.

[AvecPoesie]

I yearn to give and receive tangible, hand-written love letters. It is an art that has been lost. I long to return to more meaningful styles of communication. 💞

[bernardbarbour]

My girlfriend lives in South America. Even though we have whatsapp, facetime, skype etc I still write her hand written letters. The first time she got a letter from me it was like Christmas, New Years, her birthday and every emotion all rolled into one. I will always write her letters when we get married and live together.

[jeanaleman]

Wrote my first love letter tn, took me 5 hours but i dropped it off at her house. Truly some words cant be expressed verbally

[kihyunito]

even before my girlfriend and i started dating we wrote each other letters that we would exchange at uni. it is truly an amazing and oh so beautiful thing, exchanging letter with the people you love ❤

[elizaturner]

My boyfriend just entered Basic and we are not big on texting but prefer calling or talking in person. So the concept of putting my admiration and support for him into writing is more challenging than I thought. I hope I can make him feel my love for him through page when he receives a letter from me.

[meloneymoore]

I remember I use to have a stack of hand written love letters that me and my first love wrote to each other. I even use to write letters to my pen pal when I was in the 5th grade. Passing letters in class of which guys in class were the most attractive.

[davisallen]

My sweetheart and I have sent eachother many letters while I've been away training at BCT and AIT. The letters she sent me gave me drive and something to look forward to at the end of the day. She is my one and only. In this world of quiters, I hope we don't quit on eachother before the best part even begins when I return home. It may be like the ending of the movie jar head or it might be a tearful reunion. Either way my feelings are strong and I pray hers are as well.

[jinseinogakuseiesq]

2022: writing one now! Thank you for your time to be inspiring to us .

[johnreymillete]

I just started to make love letters to this girl that i have crush for 2 years. She's the perfect 10 girl, and im just an average dude. I admit that im a very shy guy that don't know how to talk to a women like her, but here i am writing letters that i don't know if i could send to her.

[brianthesnail]

My wife and I wrote love letters to each other when we were dating in the 1980s in the holidays from university when we were way from each other back at our parents' homes. Things we could only say most easily in a letter. Things that would be read a read again over and over.

I think young men and women dating now miss a lot when using texts and other online messaging on mobile phones. So swift and not well thought and never recorded for the future.

[RobertRodriguez-mkwm]

Youre last tw o letters givevme everything i need to love yall

[erickaphantomhive]

I’ve written many love letters however I’ve never sent them. I’ve always wondered how things would’ve been different if I did send them. As of now in the middle of night I am writing another one. This time however, I do plan on sending it. With him being so far away and busy, we could barely talk even on the phone and if we do he always have to sneak around work to send a couple messages. I know I’ll never be able to fully express my feelings on my phone, I decided to write a letter because I know that on paper I’ve always write full of feelings. As soon as my pen touched the paper I just started writing, I may not know what to talk about my hand moves pouring all my feelings onto it.

Update: that was almost two years ago and he ghosted me a couple weeks later… recently I have written another one but for someone else and he actually treasured my letter and put it in his safe where he keeps all of his valuable things

[bucketbucket]

My niece saw me writing a letter yesterday and told me I'm so old school. Then she showed me that Text a Letter app! Oh these kids and their tech, so hard to keep up! Guess who I was writing the letter for…

[salkin]

Today I wrote a love letter to a female friend about the feelings I had during the kissing time we had under an umbrella during a warm rainy August night

[warmachine_]

My letters never make it to my love. I've sent many. Also my love makes me feel unwanted and not good enough often. They don't desire me. They want a musician. A poet. A dancer. Many things I'm not. I'm so many other things however and I'd take dance lessons with them if they would do it with me. They say things that hurt me and don't even know it. They don't show me any effort at times. Why should I be the only one that shows effort? Am I not worth it as well? No matter how hard I try or what I do to show my love, it's overlooked and never good enough or feels that way. I invest time, effort, and support in many ways. Why can't I get much back? 😢💔