Course M. E. O’Brien, “Family Abolition, Insurgent SocialReproduction and Capitalist Crises”

Course description

This PhD course offers an advanced introduction to and exploration of family abolition. Family abolition has repeatedly emerged during cycles of mass social protest and revolution. During this masterclass, M. E. O’Brien will offer a brief lecture tracing three moments of family abolitionist politics—the Russian Revolution, the “Red Decade” of the late 1960s and early 1970s, and its resurfacing in the last decade. Family abolition offers multiple contributions to Marxist-Feminist debates on “social reproduction,” concerned with the place of unwaged labor in the household and particular waged industrial sectors focused on the reproduction of human life, including child and elder care, education and healthcare. Family abolitionist analyses links exclusion and inclusion in social reproduction circuits, and highlights the particular centrality of innovated collective forms of social reproduction in sustaining mass protest movements. By analyzing from a revolutionary horizon, family abolitionist frameworks highlight the changing historical shifts in social reproduction between the private household, the state and the market. Following this brief lecture, up to three participants will have the opportunity to present a paper of approx. ten minutes, responded to by O’Brien and discussed by the group. Reading material will be circulated to registered participants upon registration.

Aim/Learning outcomes

• Gain a comprehensive understanding of the histories of family abolition
• Engage critically with foundational texts and contemporary debates.
• Be able to position family abolition within broader theoretical and methodological landscapes.
• Have the opportunity to discuss their own research cases, theoretical frameworks, and methodological challenges with the course lectures and participants.

Requirements for participation

• Prepare a paper of approx. ten minutes to present in plenum, which will be responded to by M.E. O’Brien and other participants.
• Assigned preparatory reading, listed below and distributed after the application deadline.

Target group/Participants

• PhD students on all levels from the human and social sciences and artistic research. 

Workload

• Course/teaching hours: 1 day, 3 hours (9th of October, 13:00 – 16:00)
• Preparation hours: 25 hours

Language 

• English

Lecturers

M. E. O’Brien

E. O’Brien writes and speaks on gender freedom and capitalism. She has written two books: Family Abolition: Capitalism and the Communizing of Care(Pluto Press, 2023) and a co-authored speculative novel, Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052–2072(Common Notions, 2022). She is a member of the editorial collective of Pinko, a magazine of gay communism. Her work on family abolition has been translated into Chinese, German, Greek, French, Spanish, Catalan, and Turkish.

Previously, she coordinated the New York City Trans Oral History Project, and worked in HIV and AIDS activism and services. She completed a PhD at New York University, where she wrote on how capitalism shaped New York City LGBTQ social movements. She currently works and is in formation as a psychoanalyst in private practice in New York City.

Literature - To be distributed after the application deadline

• Kollontai, A. (1920) “Communism and the Family”
• Lewis, S. (2022) “Comrades Agist Kinship” in Abolish the Family, Verso. 
• O’Brien, M. E. (2023) “Introduction” and “Rebellions of the Red Decade” from Family Abolition, Pluto. 
• Olufemi, L. (2021) Experiments in Imagining Otherwise, Hajar(Excerpts) 
• Third World Gay Revolution (1970) “16 Point Platform and Program,” “We Demand,” and “Gay Men in Philadelphia” 

Venue

• 9 October 2025. 13.00-16.00. Jens Chr. Skous Vej 7 , 8000 Aarhus C. Building 1465, room 315

Course dates:

• 09 October 2025 13:00 - 16:00