Queerness & Labor

Instructor: Ben Miller Date & Time: Saturdays, November 16, 23, 30, December 7 2 PM - 4:30 PM ET

DESCRIPTION This seminar will think queerness outside and beyond the framework of identity, looking at its historical and contemporary relationship with labor. Is queerness a form of socially productive labor? How does it intersect with work, and the power relations between workers and capital? We will approach queer sexuality as a question of everyday life; as a series of institutions within which people interact and describe their experiences. In the first session, we will develop an evolving understanding of one particular vision of queerness-as-labor: beginning with readings of socialist feminist texts on reproductive labor and then diving into 1960s and 1970s activist conversations about queer sex, spirituality, and social institutions. The second session will examine the history of queer union organizing (including the 1930s Marine Cooks and Stewards Union, sex worker organizing among male hustlers, gay male flight attendants, and more). The final two sessions will be devoted to guest lectures and discussions of contemporary critical viewpoints on these topics: first, from Michelle Esther O’Brien, on trans-led union organizing in the retail sector, and second, from Sophie Lewis, on surrogacy and reproductive accelerationism.

IMAGE: Attila Richard Lukacs, Calico Boys, 1999

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