Erotic Worldmaking in Fascistic Times – Alexander Stoffel

At a moment when resurgent nationalisms promise order through repression (of borders, bodies, and desire), what would it mean to reclaim erotic life as a site of collective struggle?

From the Cold War to neoliberalism, struggles for sexual freedom have unfolded in the shadow of US empire. Today, as authoritarian movements reassert the primacy of nation, family, and “civilization,” the stakes of those earlier battles come sharply back into view. Drawing on Eros and Empire: The Transnational Struggle for Sexual Freedom in the United States (Stanford University Press, 2025), this lecture will explore how queer radicals imagined and built worlds in which erotic life exceeded property, patriotism, and respectability. It will revisit the transnational history of queer politics and ask what their experiments in ‘erotic worldmaking’ can offer us in our present conjuncture of militarism, border violence, and moral panic.

Dr. Alexander Stoffel is a Lecturer in International Politics in the School of Society and Environment at Queen Mary University of London and an editor of the journal Historical Materialism, where he co-convenes the Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Struggles Stream. His research takes up critical questions regarding the intersections of sexuality, race, and desire within capitalist expansion. He is author of Eros and Empire: The Transnational Struggle for Sexual Freedom in the United States, published by Stanford University Press in 2025.

Organised by the Center for Critical Studies and the Gender and Diversity Research Network. 

The event will take place in English.

Contact: ccs@leuphana.de