Nancy Fraser

An analysis of the relationships of feminism across history, its affirmation as a political approach after the 2017 struggles and its impact on current transformations of capitalism form the aim of this lecture, which sets out to trace the evolution of the feminist movement from the 1970s to the present day and to anticipate a new phase of more radical and equal thought and action.

Running in parallel to the birth of a new left in the 1960s and 1970s, second-wave feminism emerged in the light of women’s liberation, occupying a prominent place alongside other radical movements that questioned the main characteristics of a capitalist society. Coinciding with a waning utopian outlook and the rise of neoliberalism in the 1980s, feminism was shaped by identity politics. Today, Nancy Fraser advocates the revival of a feminist radicalism capable of addressing the current systemic crisis of capitalism and its modes of value production and social reproduction, whilst endorsing feminism as a force which, side by side with other movements, transforms and surpasses capitalism as a historical system of domination. 

Nancy Fraser is a political philosopher and feminist intellectual. She is the Henry A. and Louise Loeb Professor of Political Science and Philosophy at the New School in New York, and currently occupies the International Research Chair in Global Justice at the Collège d’études mondiales, Paris. She is also a professor at the Centre for Gender Research at the University of Oslo. She founded the journal Constellations and, as well as coordinating it for many years, is a member of its Editorial Council. She is the author of Redistribution or Recognition?: A Political-Philosophical Exchange (Verso, 2003), written with Axel Honneth; Scales of Justice (Polity Press, 2008); Fortunes of Feminism. From State-Managed Capitalism to Neoliberal Crisis (Verso, 2013); Capitalism: A Conversation in Critical Theory, with Rahel Jaeggi (Polity, 2018); and Feminism for the 99%. A Manifesto, with Cinzia Arruza and Tithi Bhattacharya (Verso, 2019).