A Manifesto for Care and Liberation

December 1, 2022 -
5:00pm to 6:30pm

Sophie Lewis, PhD
Brooklyn Institute for Social Research

The Covid-19 pandemic exacerbated the crisis of care in the developed world. But the increasing popular recognition that those members of society disproportionately charged with “reproductive labor” are overburdened, isolated, underpaid, or even not paid at all, now provides a possible opening for a radical reorganization of the domestic sphere. Where can we look for inspiration? In the nineteenth century, the French feminist Charles Fourier designed blueprints for communities in which caring responsibilities were maximally shared and redistributed; in the early twentieth century, the Bolshevik Alexandra Kollontai envisioned a non-propertarian form of parenting she called “red love.” In the Sixties and Seventies, radical Black feminist, gay liberationist, and anti-capitalist militants envisioned “children's liberation” and experimented with kibbutzes and communes. Equally, in various ways throughout history, Indigenous, colonized, and enslaved populations pursued heterogeneous, anti-propertarian versions of kinship. In this talk, Sophie Lewis will present the surprising history of the often misunderstood utopian slogan “abolish the family.”

Health Humanities Lecture Series of the Center for Bioethics & Health Law — This lecture is offered in conjunction with Ailing Bodies, taught by Kaliane Ung, and in celebration of the new undergraduate Certificate in Health Humanities.