Radicals in Conversation
Radicals in Conversation
Pluto Press
Eros and Alienation: Capitalism and the Making of Gendered Sexualities
1 hour 10 minutes Posted Feb 4, 2025 at 10:26 am.
Introduction
Alan Sears’ background and genesis of the book
The Marxist idea of labour
Alienation under capitalism
Social reproduction theory
Eroticism as hunger for embodied fulfillment
’Erotic enclosure’ in 19th century industrial capitalism
The function of schooling
Fordism and the reconfiguration of masculinity
Mass production principles and the commodification of the body
Metabolic rift and our relationship with nature
Fetishisation of commodities and the reification of desire
The prescriptive and proscriptive state
Neoliberalism, homonormativity and the attacks on trans rights
Queer Marxism and utopianism
Science Fiction
How sociality underpins solidarity and powers our movements
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Show notes

With Alan Sears.

In this episode we discuss the new book, Eros and Alienation: Capitalism and the Making of Gendered Sexualities.

Alan Sears lays out his expansive understanding of key ideas like labour, alienation, social reproduction, and eroticism. We discuss 'erotic enclosure' in 19th century industrial capitalism, bodily discipline and identity formation at work and in school; how state social policy has shifted, balancing the constraint and unleashing of desire, and forged hegemonic, heteronormative (and homonormative) gender regimes. We also look at nature and ecology, and what science fiction can offer us as we think through more revolutionary possibilities and practices around gender and sexuality.

Podcast listeners can get 40% off the book on plutobooks.com, using the coupon PODCAST at the checkout.

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Alan Sears is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Toronto Metropolitan University. He has been writing about queer Marxism for activist and scholarly audiences since the mid-1980s. He is an activist and author of several books including The Next New Left: A History of the Future. Alan resides in Toronto, Ontario.