Description
Book SynopsisDe-centering queer theory seeks to reorient queer theory to a different conception of bodies and sexuality derived from Eastern European Marxism. The book articulates a contrast between the concept of the productive body, which draws its epistemology from Soviet and avant-garde theorists, and Cold War gender, which is defined as the social construction of the body. The first part of the book concentrates on the theoretical and visual production of Eastern European Marxism, which proposed an alternative version of sexuality to that of western liberalism. In doing so it offers a historical angle to understand the emergence not only of an alternative epistemology, but also of queer theory’s vocabulary. The second part of the book provides a Marxist, anti-capitalist archive for queer studies, which often neglects to engage critically with its liberal and Cold War underpinnings.
Trade ReviewWinner of the ALGCR Prize for Cultural and Literary Theory 2021 -- .
Table of ContentsList of figures
Acknowledgments
PART I: COMMUNIST SEXUALITY IN THE FLOW
1 A materialist conception of queer theory
PART II: GENDER AND THE ERASURE OF MARXIST EPISTEMOLOGY
2 Productive bodies in early Soviet Marxism
3 The birth of gender epistemology during the US Cold War
4 Marxism and queer theory at the end of the Cold War
PART III: DE-CONTEXTUALIZING MARXISM
5 Abolition
6 Counterfetish
7 The unconscious
8 Trans
9 The future of queer communism
Bibliography
Index
