The rise of the far right is a defining feature of our time. With nationalism and racism as its h... more The rise of the far right is a defining feature of our time. With nationalism and racism as its hallmarks, it is more opportunistic towards Jews and lgbtiq people than in the past. Yet antisemitism and heteronationalism are still strong on the far right. A Marxist analysis founded on social-reproduction theory can help explain this, given Jews' prominence in such fields as the media, and the potential threat posed to the heteronormative family by queers. Far-right hostility to Jews and queers is present among not only neo-fascist but also post-fascist forces. Yet Jews and lgbtiq people can be inhibited from mobilising against the far right by presuppositions they share with it, particularly homonationalist and Zionist ones. Despite this, the potential exists for radical resistance to the far right by Jews and queers, as manifest in the growing ranks of Jews and queers organising against racism and for internationalist solidarity.
Marxists working in queer studies, while addressing theoretical and political differences among t... more Marxists working in queer studies, while addressing theoretical and political differences among themselves, have gradually been building a body of theory during the first decades of the 21st century. They have been synthesizing core Marxist concepts, like class, totality, reification, social reproduction and combined and uneven development, with concepts from other paradigms, such as social construction, performativity, homonationalism and intersectionality. Their efforts have both engaged with and challenged the poststructuralist approaches that have been largely dominant in contemporary queer theory. To begin with, Marxists working in queer studies were able to draw on earlier connections between sex reform movements and the Second and Third Internationals, and between lesbian/gay liberation and the New Left. But over the past quarter-century they have to a great extent engaged in academic debates with contemporary queer theory, while looking as well to queer-identified radical activism since the emergence of ACT UP and Queer Nation in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The influence of their largely academic milieu is reflected in their attention to philosophy, literature and the arts, as well as the more core concerns of historical materialism. They generally share a broad social constructionist approach to sexuality and an aversion to economic reductionism. While the USA, UK and Canada have been the main centres of academic queer Marxism, 54
Adrienne Rich was one of the United States' leading poets, the recipient of countless honors, a l... more Adrienne Rich was one of the United States' leading poets, the recipient of countless honors, a lesbian feminist icon and a public intellectual on the left. Hilary Holladay’s beautifully and incisively written biography provides a wealth of material to track Rich’s political and intellectual development as well as her poetry and her life. In part a review of Holladay’s book, this article also tries to illuminate Rich’s deep engagement with Marxism during the last thirty years of her life.
The project of the French Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU) in Morocco in the late
nineteenth ... more The project of the French Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU) in Morocco in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—to win social and political equality for Jews through European enlightenment—was intertwined with the French imperial project. Moroccan Jewish women were assigned, as mothers and wives, a special role in the AIU’s efforts: to help Jewish boys and men pursue commercial or professional careers in French-dominated society. The AIU schools set out to win Moroccan Jews away from despised Muslim gender and sexual norms by Europeanizing Jews’ marriage patterns and family forms, combating prostitution, eliminating women’s traditional head coverings, and reining in what the AIU saw as men’s promiscuity and homosexual tendencies. Ultimately, the AIU helped further estrange Moroccan Jews from Muslims but failed to secure Moroccan Jews’ smooth integration into French secular culture. Moroccan Jews in Israel today, faced with persistent discrimination, largely cling to religiously based, conservative gender norms.
Until now, most discussions on the place of lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender (LGBT) people in glo... more Until now, most discussions on the place of lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender (LGBT) people in global civil society have focused on their access to citizenship, rather than their socio-economic rights and role in development processes. This article argues that an alternative vision of development should challenge heteronormative family structures; build alternative, queer communities ; wage activist, sexually emancipatory campaigns on concrete social issues (as the Treatment Action Campaign has done on HIV and AIDS in South Africa); and rethink existing models of democratic participation. The author emphasises the paradoxes of LGBT organisation in the context of neo-liberalism and globalisation, with an eye toward queering, or challenging heteronormativity in, global social-justice movements.
Byron has been seen as central to a Romantic vision of the Levant, the struggle for Greek
indepen... more Byron has been seen as central to a Romantic vision of the Levant, the struggle for Greek independence and an idealization of Greek male love. Yet not much sustained attention has been given to Byron’s same-sex experience with Muslims or to the Ottoman culture of his beloved Greek boys. Byron grasped opportunities for same-sex erotic experience that the Ottoman Empire offered; yet by helping to establish a homogeneous Greek Christian state, he helped magnify the power of the Orthodox clergy that still acts in Greece as a brake on homoeroticism. In helping to Europeanize the Greeks, he helped destroy aspects of the Islamic world that deeply appealed to him. Byron’s Orientalism made him a bridge-builder between East and West; today we should recognize both the patriarchal despotism and the sexual and cultural wealth of the Levant he celebrated and helped destroy.
The rise of the far right is a defining feature of our time. With nationalism and racism as its h... more The rise of the far right is a defining feature of our time. With nationalism and racism as its hallmarks, it is more opportunistic towards Jews and lgbtiq people than in the past. Yet antisemitism and heteronationalism are still strong on the far right. A Marxist analysis founded on social-reproduction theory can help explain this, given Jews' prominence in such fields as the media, and the potential threat posed to the heteronormative family by queers. Far-right hostility to Jews and queers is present among not only neo-fascist but also post-fascist forces. Yet Jews and lgbtiq people can be inhibited from mobilising against the far right by presuppositions they share with it, particularly homonationalist and Zionist ones. Despite this, the potential exists for radical resistance to the far right by Jews and queers, as manifest in the growing ranks of Jews and queers organising against racism and for internationalist solidarity.
Marxists working in queer studies, while addressing theoretical and political differences among t... more Marxists working in queer studies, while addressing theoretical and political differences among themselves, have gradually been building a body of theory during the first decades of the 21st century. They have been synthesizing core Marxist concepts, like class, totality, reification, social reproduction and combined and uneven development, with concepts from other paradigms, such as social construction, performativity, homonationalism and intersectionality. Their efforts have both engaged with and challenged the poststructuralist approaches that have been largely dominant in contemporary queer theory. To begin with, Marxists working in queer studies were able to draw on earlier connections between sex reform movements and the Second and Third Internationals, and between lesbian/gay liberation and the New Left. But over the past quarter-century they have to a great extent engaged in academic debates with contemporary queer theory, while looking as well to queer-identified radical activism since the emergence of ACT UP and Queer Nation in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The influence of their largely academic milieu is reflected in their attention to philosophy, literature and the arts, as well as the more core concerns of historical materialism. They generally share a broad social constructionist approach to sexuality and an aversion to economic reductionism. While the USA, UK and Canada have been the main centres of academic queer Marxism, 54
Adrienne Rich was one of the United States' leading poets, the recipient of countless honors, a l... more Adrienne Rich was one of the United States' leading poets, the recipient of countless honors, a lesbian feminist icon and a public intellectual on the left. Hilary Holladay’s beautifully and incisively written biography provides a wealth of material to track Rich’s political and intellectual development as well as her poetry and her life. In part a review of Holladay’s book, this article also tries to illuminate Rich’s deep engagement with Marxism during the last thirty years of her life.
The project of the French Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU) in Morocco in the late
nineteenth ... more The project of the French Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU) in Morocco in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—to win social and political equality for Jews through European enlightenment—was intertwined with the French imperial project. Moroccan Jewish women were assigned, as mothers and wives, a special role in the AIU’s efforts: to help Jewish boys and men pursue commercial or professional careers in French-dominated society. The AIU schools set out to win Moroccan Jews away from despised Muslim gender and sexual norms by Europeanizing Jews’ marriage patterns and family forms, combating prostitution, eliminating women’s traditional head coverings, and reining in what the AIU saw as men’s promiscuity and homosexual tendencies. Ultimately, the AIU helped further estrange Moroccan Jews from Muslims but failed to secure Moroccan Jews’ smooth integration into French secular culture. Moroccan Jews in Israel today, faced with persistent discrimination, largely cling to religiously based, conservative gender norms.
Until now, most discussions on the place of lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender (LGBT) people in glo... more Until now, most discussions on the place of lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender (LGBT) people in global civil society have focused on their access to citizenship, rather than their socio-economic rights and role in development processes. This article argues that an alternative vision of development should challenge heteronormative family structures; build alternative, queer communities ; wage activist, sexually emancipatory campaigns on concrete social issues (as the Treatment Action Campaign has done on HIV and AIDS in South Africa); and rethink existing models of democratic participation. The author emphasises the paradoxes of LGBT organisation in the context of neo-liberalism and globalisation, with an eye toward queering, or challenging heteronormativity in, global social-justice movements.
Byron has been seen as central to a Romantic vision of the Levant, the struggle for Greek
indepen... more Byron has been seen as central to a Romantic vision of the Levant, the struggle for Greek independence and an idealization of Greek male love. Yet not much sustained attention has been given to Byron’s same-sex experience with Muslims or to the Ottoman culture of his beloved Greek boys. Byron grasped opportunities for same-sex erotic experience that the Ottoman Empire offered; yet by helping to establish a homogeneous Greek Christian state, he helped magnify the power of the Orthodox clergy that still acts in Greece as a brake on homoeroticism. In helping to Europeanize the Greeks, he helped destroy aspects of the Islamic world that deeply appealed to him. Byron’s Orientalism made him a bridge-builder between East and West; today we should recognize both the patriarchal despotism and the sexual and cultural wealth of the Levant he celebrated and helped destroy.
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nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—to win social and political equality for Jews through
European enlightenment—was intertwined with the French imperial project. Moroccan Jewish
women were assigned, as mothers and wives, a special role in the AIU’s efforts: to help
Jewish boys and men pursue commercial or professional careers in French-dominated society.
The AIU schools set out to win Moroccan Jews away from despised Muslim gender and sexual
norms by Europeanizing Jews’ marriage patterns and family forms, combating prostitution,
eliminating women’s traditional head coverings, and reining in what the AIU saw as men’s
promiscuity and homosexual tendencies. Ultimately, the AIU helped further estrange Moroccan
Jews from Muslims but failed to secure Moroccan Jews’ smooth integration into French
secular culture. Moroccan Jews in Israel today, faced with persistent discrimination, largely
cling to religiously based, conservative gender norms.
independence and an idealization of Greek male love. Yet not much sustained attention has been
given to Byron’s same-sex experience with Muslims or to the Ottoman culture of his beloved
Greek boys. Byron grasped opportunities for same-sex erotic experience that the Ottoman
Empire offered; yet by helping to establish a homogeneous Greek Christian state, he helped
magnify the power of the Orthodox clergy that still acts in Greece as a brake on homoeroticism.
In helping to Europeanize the Greeks, he helped destroy aspects of the Islamic world that deeply
appealed to him. Byron’s Orientalism made him a bridge-builder between East and West; today
we should recognize both the patriarchal despotism and the sexual and cultural wealth of the
Levant he celebrated and helped destroy.
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—to win social and political equality for Jews through
European enlightenment—was intertwined with the French imperial project. Moroccan Jewish
women were assigned, as mothers and wives, a special role in the AIU’s efforts: to help
Jewish boys and men pursue commercial or professional careers in French-dominated society.
The AIU schools set out to win Moroccan Jews away from despised Muslim gender and sexual
norms by Europeanizing Jews’ marriage patterns and family forms, combating prostitution,
eliminating women’s traditional head coverings, and reining in what the AIU saw as men’s
promiscuity and homosexual tendencies. Ultimately, the AIU helped further estrange Moroccan
Jews from Muslims but failed to secure Moroccan Jews’ smooth integration into French
secular culture. Moroccan Jews in Israel today, faced with persistent discrimination, largely
cling to religiously based, conservative gender norms.
independence and an idealization of Greek male love. Yet not much sustained attention has been
given to Byron’s same-sex experience with Muslims or to the Ottoman culture of his beloved
Greek boys. Byron grasped opportunities for same-sex erotic experience that the Ottoman
Empire offered; yet by helping to establish a homogeneous Greek Christian state, he helped
magnify the power of the Orthodox clergy that still acts in Greece as a brake on homoeroticism.
In helping to Europeanize the Greeks, he helped destroy aspects of the Islamic world that deeply
appealed to him. Byron’s Orientalism made him a bridge-builder between East and West; today
we should recognize both the patriarchal despotism and the sexual and cultural wealth of the
Levant he celebrated and helped destroy.