The politics of everybody : feminism, queer theory and Marxism at the intersection / Holly Lewis.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lewis, Holly, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Sex role.

Physical Description:

xii, 340 pages ; 22 cm

Other Title:

The politics of every body : feminism, queer theory and Marxism at the intersection

Place of Publication:

London : Zed Books, [2016]

Summary:

This is not a book about alternative sexualities, nor is it a book about desire. The Politics of Everybody examines the production and maintenance of the terms 'man', 'woman', and 'other' within the current political moment, the contradictions of these categories, and the prospects of a Marxist approach to praxis for queer bodies. Few thinkers have attempted to reconcile queer and Marxist analysis. Those who have propose the key contested site to be that of desire/sexual expression. This emphasis on desire, Lewis argues, is symptomatic of the neoliberal project and has led to a continued fascination with the politics of identity. By arguing that Marxist analysis is in fact most beneficial to gender politics within the arena of body production, categorization, and exclusion, Lewis develops a theory of gender and the sexed body that is wedded to the realities of a capitalist political economy. Boldly calling for a new, materialist queer theory, Lewis defines a politics of liberation that is both intersectional, transnational, and grounded in lived experience. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Terms of the debate 17

I Debates in Western gender politics 18

Epistemology and identity politics 18

Queer (anti-)identity 25

Sex and social gender: dichotomy or dialectic? 30

A final word on queer language 33

II What is capitalism? 35

The origins of capitalism 36

The basics of capitalist exchange 40

The extraction of surplus value 42

III Philosophy and the Marxian roots of queer political thought 46

Marx and philosophy 47

Epistemology revisited 51

Changing words or changing worlds? 55

The separation of politics and economics 60

From Western Marxism to poststructuralism 64

IV Conclusion 88

2 Marxism and gender 93

I Don't be vulgar... 93

II From the woman question to the gender question 102

III Marxism at the center and the periphery 105

IV Marx on women 110

V Marx on gender and labor 113

VI The major works: Marx's Ethnological Notebooks and Engels' The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State 121

VII Early Marxist and socialist feminism 125

Who is the woman in the woman question? 125

Sex and the Utopian socialists 132

Sex and the Second International 135

Sex and the Russian Revolution 139

VIII Theories of social reproduction 143

IX Race and social reproduction 155

X Marxism and the second wave 166

3 From queer nationalism to queer Marxism 187

I The vector model of oppression 187

II Racecraft and ideological repetition 196

III Sexcraft and ideological repetition 198

IV Class is not a moral category 201

V The rise of queer politics 203

VI Marxist critiques of queer theory 212

VII Beyond homonormativity and homonationalism 222

VIII The spinning compass of American queer politics 230

The problem of marriage and family 230

The problem of queer imperialism 238

IX The world is a very queer place 245

X The queer Marxist critique of postcolonialism 247

4 Conclusions 257

I Solidarity means taking sides 257

Solidarity and ideologies of sex/gender 264

II Ten axioms towards a queer Marxist future 270.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 311-326) and index.

ISBN:

9781783602872

1783602872

9781783602889

1783602880

OCLC:

907186859

Publisher Number:

40025726840