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Sophie Lewis (author)

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Sophie Lewis
Born1988
Vienna, Austria
NationalityGerman, British
Alma materUniversity of Oxford, The New School, University of Manchester
EraContemporary philosophy
RegionWestern philosophy
InstitutionsUniversity of Pennsylvania
Main interests

Sophie Lewis (born 1988) is a German-British writer and independent scholar based in Philadelphia, mainly known for her anti-state communism,[1] transfeminism, literary criticism, and cultural analysis, especially her critical-utopian[2] theorization of "full surrogacy",[3] her idea that "all reproduction is assisted"[4] as well as "amniotechnics",[5] and her advocacy for family abolition.[6][7] Lewis's personal website describes her as a "recovering academic."[8]

In 2019, Lewis was commissioned to write an op-ed in The New York Times to explain "How British Feminism Became Anti-Trans",[9] where she proposed that the reason for the United Kingdom's trans-exclusionary radical feminism[10] is its history of imperialism.[11][9] She gained notoriety in September 2020 when she tweeted about the multispecies erotic dynamics[12] in the Netflix documentary My Octopus Teacher,[13] a controversy she later referred to as "octopusgate" in a 2021 essay published in n+1 magazine: "My Octopus Girlfriend".[14][15]

Lewis has published two books through Verso Books; Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism against the Family, published in May 2019, and Abolish the Family: A Manifesto for Care and Liberation, published in October 2022.[16] Her third book, Enemy Feminisms: TERFs, Policewomen, and Girlbosses Against Liberation, will be published by Haymarket Books in February 2025.[17]

Early life and education

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Lewis was born in Vienna and raised between Geneva and France.[18] Her mother, Ingrid Helga Lewis, was a middle-class German liberal who was once a Maoist involved in the West German student movement at the University of Göttingen. Lewis described her childhood in a series of personal essays concerning her family and, later, the death of her mother in 2019. Her maternal grandfather was an Adolf Hitler supporter and served in the Wehrmacht and her maternal grandmother was ex-Jewish. Her parents met in Vienna while her mother worked for the BBC German Service. According to Lewis, her mother discovered her Jewish heritage in 2008; her mother's family, the Sternbergs, had changed their surname and had converted to Christianity shortly before The Holocaust "in order to embrace anti-Semitic Gentile life." Lewis' mother was an Anglophile who repudiated German culture and refused to teach her children the German language.[19][20][21]

Between 2007 and 2011, she studied at the University of Oxford, getting a Bachelor of Arts in English Language and Literature, and a master's degree in Nature, Society and Environmental Policy.[citation needed] She completed, in 2011–2013, a master's in Politics at The New School in New York City, on a Fulbright scholarship, and then received Economic and Social Research Council funding to pursue a PhD in human geography between 2013 and 2017, at the University of Manchester.[citation needed] Lewis' PhD thesis, entitled Cyborg Labour: Exploring Surrogacy as Gestational Work,[22] focused on the political economy of the surrogacy industry.

Career

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After completing her PhD, Lewis published her first book, Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism against the Family, which was followed by Abolish the Family: A Manifesto for Care and Liberation in October 2022. Abolish the Family has been translated into Spanish, Catalan, German, Greek, Turkish, French, Portuguese, Korean, Chinese, and Czech. Full Surrogacy Now has been translated into Spanish, Korean, Romanian, and Portuguese.

Lewis is based in Philadelphia; she is a freelance writer with an unpaid affiliation as a visiting scholar at the Center for Research in Feminist, Queer, and Transgender Studies (FQT Center) at the University of Pennsylvania.[16] Lewis also teaches online courses on critical theory for the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research.[23] Having departed formal academia, Lewis makes a living as a "para-academic" and cultural critic supported by speaking engagements and Patreon revenue.[8] She has been invited to lecture on family abolitionism in countries around the world.[24][25][26][27][28][29]

Lewis has published many essays since 2013, on topics ranging from Marilyn Monroe[30] to tradwives,[31] in magazines including Harper's Magazine,[30] the London Review of Books,[32] Boston Review,[33] Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung,[34] Logic(s),[35] The Baffler[36] Lux Magazine,[37] Parapraxis,[19] Tank,[38] The Nation,[39] e-flux,[20] Mal Journal,[40] Dissent,[41] The New Inquiry,[42] Jacobin,[43] The White Review,[44] and Salvage. Lewis's peer-reviewed papers have appeared in the journals Feminist Theory,[21] Paragraph,[45] Feminist Review,[46] Signs,[47] Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies,[48] Gender, Place & Culture,[49] and Dialogues in Human Geography.[50]

Lewis's German-English translations for MIT Press include A Brief History of Feminism (Antje Schrupp) and Communism for Kids (Bini Adamczak).[51][52][53] Her translation of Sabine Hark and Paula-Irene Villa Braslavsky's book The Future of Difference: Beyond the Toxic Entanglement of Racism, Sexism and Feminism was published by Verso Books in 2020.[54] Lewis also translated Bini Adamczak's essay "On Circlusion",[55] which inspired her writing on amniotechnics.[56]

Lewis is a member of the ecological writing collective Out of the Woods,[23] who edited a collection called Hope Against Hope: Writings on Ecological Crisis.[57]

Views

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Lewis has been described as operating "a strikingly hopeful feminist Marxism."[58] She advocates for children's liberation,[38] communization,[59] family abolition,[60] Palestinian liberation,[61] transgender rights,[62] and climate justice.[63] She has appeared on podcasts to discuss her views, including: This Is Hell!,[64] New Books Network,[65] Verso,[66] Hotel Bar Sessions,[67] Death Panel,[68] Big Mood, Little Mood,[69] Podcast for Social Research,[70] The Heteropessimists,[71] Ordinary Unhappiness,[72] e-flux,[73] London Review Bookshop,[74] Politics Theory Other,[75] The Dig,[76] Against Everyone with Conner Habib,[77] The Final Straw,[78] Rabbles,[79] and The Good Robot.[80]

Contrary to some people's belief upon hearing of her work, Lewis does not advocate for commercial gestational surrogacy. Instead, according to academic Natalie Suzelis, "Lewis builds upon Kalindi Vora’s analysis of the surrogacy industry by using it to highlight the contradictions of capitalist reproduction."[81] Journalist Marie Solis for VICE explains that "Lewis imagines a future where the labor of making new human beings is shared among all of us, 'mother' no longer being a natural category, but instead something we can choose."[18]

Reception

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Feminist academics have generally praised Lewis.[82][83] Amia Srinivasan has said that her work is "sharp, bold, compassionate and fearless."[17] Melissa Gira Grant opines that "Sophie Lewis and her expansive vision of feminism are desperately needed right now. She makes the work of undoing what 'womanhood' has come to mean look possible and irresistible."[84] Paul B. Preciado has said: “Sophie Lewis is at the top of a new generation of scholars and activists thinking the transformation of gestational labor within contemporary pharmacopornographic capitalism."[85] Donna Haraway described Full Surrogacy Now as: "the seriously radical cry for full gestational justice that I long for."[86] Positive reviews of her work have been written in magazines including The New Yorker, the London Review of Books, and The Times Literary Supplement, as well as blogs like Libcom.org.[87]

Right-wing and religious commentators have written negative reviews of Lewis' work.[88][89] some centrism, left-leaning, and social democraticcommentators have been very critical of her work, including: Amber A’Lee Frost,[90] Nina Power,[91] Elizabeth Bruenig,[92] Tom Whyman,[93] Angela Nagle,[94] Antonella Gambotto-Burke,[95] and others.[96][97] Most of the criticism is towards her views that "children don't belong to anyone" and "children belong to us all," as described by Richard Seymour in his essay "Notes on a Normie Shit-Storm".[98]

In 2019, far-right American TV pundit Tucker Carlson invited Lewis on his show to discuss her advocacy for abortion rights and reproductive rights;[99] but she replied that she would only come on the show if Carlson donated $10,000 to the Alabama abortion fund Yellowhammer.[100] Instead, Tucker Carlson Tonight aired public-domain footage of Lewis speaking about the right to not be pregnant[101] – resulting in her getting dogpiled by anti-abortion activists.[102] Her essay "Mothering Against the World: Mothering Against Motherhood" was made into a zine by an anarchist collective.[103] In 2022, Lewis was featured on the BBC Radio program Sideways episode "It Takes A Village".[104]

Publications

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  • — (7 May 2019). Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family. Verso Books. ISBN 978-1-78663-731-4. OCLC 1127958624.
  • — (4 October 2022). Abolish the Family: A Manifesto for Care and Liberation. Verso Books. ISBN 9781839767197.
  • — (18 February 2025). Enemy Feminisms: TERFs, Policewomen, and Girlbosses Against Liberation. Chicago: Haymarket Books. ISBN 9798888902493.

References

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  1. ^ O'Brien, ME (15 October 2019). "Communizing Care". pinko.
  2. ^ Stone, Katie (3 July 2023). "Hollow children: Utopianism and disability justice". Textual Practice. 37 (9): 1406. doi:10.1080/0950236X.2023.2231295 – via Taylor & Francis Online.
  3. ^ Lane-McKinley, Madeline (10 June 2019). "Unthinking the Family in 'Full Surrogacy Now'". Los Angeles Review of Books.
  4. ^ Lewis, Sophie (10 August 2018). "Mothering". Boston Review.
  5. ^ Danewid, Ida (18 May 2023). "Unmaking Property: The River as Amniotechnics". The Disorder of Things.
  6. ^ "What is Family Abolition?". Brooklyn Institute for Social Research.
  7. ^ Kluchin, Abby; Blanchfield, Patrick (16 March 2024). "45: The Fantasy of Family and the Meaning of Family Abolition feat. Sophie Lewis and M.E. O'Brien". Ordinary Unhappiness (Podcast). Buzzsprout.
  8. ^ a b "Sophie Lewis – Writer, Theorist, Teacher". Retrieved 20 May 2024.
  9. ^ a b Lewis, Sophie (7 February 2019). "Opinion | How British Feminism Became Anti-Trans". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 20 May 2024.
  10. ^ Lewis, Sophie; Doherty, Alex (4 September 2018). "Sophie Lewis on Trans-exclusionary radical feminism". Verso Books.
  11. ^ Lewis, Sophie; Seresin, Asa (1 August 2022). "Fascist Feminism". TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly. 9 (3): 463–479. doi:10.1215/23289252-9836120. ISSN 2328-9252.
  12. ^ "My Octopus Girlfriend: On Multispecies Eros by Sophie Lewis, Tuesday 15 December, 7pm". theantimenagerie. 15 December 2020.
  13. ^ Lewis, Sophie [@reproutopia] (20 September 2020). "Well, I watched "My Octopus Teacher" on netflix: a flawed but moving documentary about a straight man who has a lifechanging erotic relationship with a female octopus. I cried, then read out loud to my friends the entirety of @amiasrinivasan's 2017 essay (https://lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v39/n17/amia-srinivasan/the-sucker-the-sucker)" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  14. ^ Lewis, Sophie (Winter 2021). "My Octopus Girlfriend". n+1. No. 39.
  15. ^ Lewis, Sophie (18 September 2020). "Mothering Against the World: Momrades Against Motherhood – Sophie Lewis". Salvage.
  16. ^ a b "Sophie Lewis". Verso Books. Retrieved 6 November 2024.
  17. ^ a b "Enemy Feminisms". Haymarket Books. Retrieved 20 May 2024.
  18. ^ a b Solis, Marie (21 February 2022). "We Can't Have a Feminist Future Without Abolishing the Family". Vice. Retrieved 10 October 2022.
  19. ^ a b Lewis, Sophie. "Caren Allstrich". Parapraxis.
  20. ^ a b Lewis, Sophie (September 2020). "With-Women: Grieving in Capitalist Time". e-flux Journal. No. 111.
  21. ^ a b Lewis, Sophie A. (10 January 2022). "Mothering against motherhood: doula work, xenohospitality and the idea of the momrade". Feminist Theory. 24 (1): 68–85. doi:10.1177/14647001211059520. ISSN 1464-7001 – via Sage Journals.
  22. ^ Lewis, Sophie (1 August 2017). Cyborg labour: exploring surrogacy as gestational work (PhD thesis). The University of Manchester.
  23. ^ a b "Sophie Lewis". Center for Research in Feminist, Queer, and Transgender Studies. Retrieved 10 October 2022.
  24. ^ "Beyond Gender Collective: Abolish the Family!". Vector. 8 June 2023.
  25. ^ "Staying with the Violence: Womb Work and Family Abolition". ICA. Retrieved 6 November 2024.
  26. ^ "Family abolition the focus of upcoming lecture by Sophie Lewis". Society for the Humanities. Cornell University. 21 February 2023. Retrieved 20 May 2024.
  27. ^ "Youth Liberation and Family Abolition: Forgotten Histories of Revolutionary Reproductive Politics". University of Rochester Calendar. Retrieved 20 May 2024.
  28. ^ "Familism versus Gender Freedom? 200 Years of Western Struggles over the Family". Amsterdam Research Center for Gender and Sexuality. University of Amsterdam. 25 January 2024. Retrieved 20 May 2024.
  29. ^ Lewis, Sophie (9 February 2024). "A Happy Ending for the Capitalist Family". Rekto:Verso. Retrieved 20 May 2024.
  30. ^ a b Lewis, Sophie (November 2022). "Some Like It Hot: Notes from the Marilyn Appreciation Society". Harper's Magazine.
  31. ^ Lewis, Sophie (26 April 2023). "Double-Shift: Dialectic of the Tradwife". Dilettante Army.
  32. ^ "Sophie Lewis". London Review of Books.
  33. ^ "Sophie Lewis". Boston Review.
  34. ^ Lewis, Sophie (17 May 2022). "Sexuelle Unlust in der Pandemie: Lustgewinn durch Enthaltsamkeit". Frankfurter Allgemeine.
  35. ^ Lewis, Sophie (3 August 2019). "Do Electric Sheep Dream of Water Babies?". Logic(s). No. 8.
  36. ^ Lewis, Sophie (March 2022). "A Woman is a Woman?". The Baffler. No. 62.
  37. ^ Lewis, Sophie (Fall 2023). "The Derelict Dads of Bridgerton". Lux Magazine. No. 8.
  38. ^ a b Lewis, Sophie. "OF INNOCENCE AND EXPERIENCE: On family abolition and learning from the transgender child". TANK MAGAZINE.
  39. ^ Lewis, Sophie (22 June 2022). "Abortion Involves Killing–and That's OK!". The Nation.
  40. ^ "Mal Journal issue 5". STACK magazines. Retrieved 6 November 2024.
  41. ^ Lewis, Sophie (Summer 2021). "The Family Lottery". Dissent Magazine.
  42. ^ "Sophie Lewis". The New Inquiry. 22 August 2022. Retrieved 6 November 2024.
  43. ^ Lewis, Sophie (26 March 2015). "Cash and Carry". Jacobin.
  44. ^ Lewis, Sophie (December 2019). "Who Liberates the Slaves?". The White Review.
  45. ^ Lewis, Sophie (2023). "Paul Preciado's Uterine Politics: Abolish the Family or Reclaim Confiscated Queer Genetic Patrimony?". Paragraph. 46: 74–89. doi:10.3366/para.2023.0419.
  46. ^ Lewis, Sophie A. (2017). "Open Space: Less 'Population' Talk, more Kin–Making: On Manchester's Birth Festival". Feminist Review. 117: 193–199. doi:10.1057/s41305-017-0084-5.
  47. ^ Lewis, Sophie (2017). "Defending Intimacy against What? Limits of Antisurrogacy Feminisms". Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. 43: 97–125. doi:10.1086/692518.
  48. ^ Lewis, Sophie (2019). "Surrogacy as Feminism: The Philanthrocapitalist Framing of Contract Pregnancy". Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies. 40 (1): 1–38. doi:10.1353/fro.2019.a719762.
  49. ^ Lewis, Sophie (2018). "International Solidarity in reproductive justice: Surrogacy and gender-inclusive polymaternalism". Gender, Place & Culture. 25 (2): 207–227. doi:10.1080/0966369X.2018.1425286.
  50. ^ Lewis, Sophie (2018). "Cyborg uterine geography". Dialogues in Human Geography. 8 (3): 300–316. doi:10.1177/2043820618804625.
  51. ^ "Sophie Lewis".
  52. ^ "Communism for Kids". AK Press. Retrieved 6 November 2024.
  53. ^ Ritner, Jesse (27 February 2019). "A Brief History of Feminism by Patu (illustrations) and Antje Schrupp and translated by Sophie Lewis (2017)". Not Even Past. Retrieved 20 May 2024.
  54. ^ "The Future of Difference: Beyond the Toxic Entanglement of Racism, Sexism and Feminism". Verso Books. Retrieved 6 November 2024.
  55. ^ Lewis, Sophie; Adamczak, Bini (22 August 2022). "Six years (and counting) of circlusion". The New Inquiry. Retrieved 20 May 2024.
  56. ^ Lewis, Sophie (25 January 2017). "Amniotechnics". The New Inquiry.
  57. ^ "Hope Against Hope: Out of the Woods collective". Common Notions Press. Retrieved 6 November 2024.
  58. ^ Boyd, Hanne Blank (25 August 2023). "'Abolish the Family: A Manifesto for Care and Liberation' by Sophie Lewis". LIBER Review. Retrieved 20 May 2024.
  59. ^ Lane-McKinley, Madeline (29 September 2023). "Beyond the End of the World: M.E. O'Brien's Family Abolition • Protean Magazine". Protean Magazine.
  60. ^ Weeks, Kathi (2023). "Abolition of the family: The most infamous feminist proposal". Feminist Theory. 24 (3): 433–453. doi:10.1177/14647001211015841.
  61. ^ Lewis, Sophie (8 March 2024). "Some of my best enemies are feminists: On Zionist feminism". Salvage.
  62. ^ Lewis, Sophie (6 February 2017). "SERF 'n' TERF". Salvage.
  63. ^ "Out of the Woods Collective, an interview on eco-fascism". Journal of Aesthetics & Protest. Retrieved 6 November 2024.
  64. ^ "Abolish the Family / Sophie Lewis". This Is Hell!. 4 October 2022.
  65. ^ "Sophie Lewis, "Abolish the Family: A Manifesto for Care and Liberation: A Manifesto for Care and Liberation" (Verso, 2022)". New Books Network. 18 November 2022.
  66. ^ "Abolish the Family | Sophie Lewis speaks to Ben Smoke". SoundCloud. Retrieved 6 November 2024.
  67. ^ "Episode 84: Abolition of the Family (With Sophie Lewis)". Hotel Bar Podcast. 17 February 2023.
  68. ^ "Death Panel: Teaser – the Machine for the Individual w/ Sophie Lewis (10/24/22)". Apple Podcasts. 24 October 2022.
  69. ^ "Seeking Stable Chosen Family – Big Mood, Little Mood Plus". Spotify. June 2021.
  70. ^ "Podcast for Social Research, Episode 52: The End of Abortion". Spotify. May 2022.
  71. ^ "Episode Five: Domestic Ecologies and Family Abolition – The Heteropessimists". Spotify. July 2022.
  72. ^ "45: The Fantasy of Family and the Meaning of Family Abolition feat. Sophie Lewis and M.E. O'Brien". YouTube. 16 March 2024.
  73. ^ "Sophie Lewis on Full Surrogacy Now – e-flux podcast". Spotify. November 2019.
  74. ^ "London Review Bookshop Podcast: Sophie Lewis & Lola Olufemi: Abolish the Family". Apple Podcasts. 25 January 2023.
  75. ^ "Israel and the history of imperial feminism w/ Sophie Lewis Politics Theory Other Podcast". Podtail. 17 April 2024.
  76. ^ "Abolish the Family with Sophie Lewis". The Dig. 11 July 2019.
  77. ^ "AEWCH 106: SOPHIE LEWIS or FAMILIES, QUARANTINES, AND WITCHES". SoundCloud. Retrieved 6 November 2024.
  78. ^ "Abortion, Family, Queerness and Private Property with Sophie Lewis". The Final Straw Radio. 10 July 2022.
  79. ^ "Rabbles: Sophie Lewis on Shulamith Firestone". Apple Podcasts. 15 February 2021.
  80. ^ "Techno-Feminisms and Why Nature is Far Stranger Than We Think with Sophie Lewis – The Good Robot". Apple Podcasts. 3 August 2022.
  81. ^ Suzelis, Natalie. "Surrogacy, Value, and Social Reproduction: A Review of Full Surrogacy Now". Mediations. 34 (2). eISSN 1942-2458.
  82. ^ Maglaque, Erin (23 September 2022). "Red love, for all". New Statesman. Retrieved 20 May 2024.
  83. ^ "Abolish the Family". Verso. Retrieved 20 May 2024.
  84. ^ "Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family". Sophie Lewis. Retrieved 20 May 2024.
  85. ^ Lewis, Sophie (4 October 2022). Abolish the Family | Sophie Lewis. Verso Books. ISBN 978-1-83976-719-7. Retrieved 6 November 2024. {{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help)
  86. ^ "Full Surrogacy Now". ICI Berlin. Retrieved 20 May 2024.
  87. ^ "Quick positive comments on Abolish the Family by Sophie Lewis". libcom.org. 27 December 2022. Retrieved 20 May 2024.
  88. ^ Harrington, Mary (11 January 2022). "Return of the Cyborgs". First Things. Retrieved 6 November 2024.
  89. ^ Sixsmith, Ben; Brian, Paul Rowan (11 July 2019). "A World Without Mothers". First Things. Retrieved 6 November 2024.
  90. ^ "Excerpt: /342/ Maybe Don't Abolish the Family? W/ Amber A'Lee Frost". Bungacast. Podbean. 23 May 2023.
  91. ^ Power, Nina (14 December 2023). "Time to ask 'But what about the children?'". The Critic Magazine.
  92. ^ "Mother Wars". Political Theory & a Peony. Wordpress.com. 25 May 2021.
  93. ^ Lewis, Sophie (13 October 2022). "Once again, Tom Whyman doesn't want to abolish the family". Patreon.
  94. ^ Nagle, Angela (15 December 2020). "Products of Gestational Labor". The Lamp Magazine.
  95. ^ Gambotto-Burke, Antonella (7 April 2023). "Sophie Lewis says it's time to abolish the family unit". The Australian.
  96. ^ Lewis, Sophie (20 May 2024). "beyond the backlasch, the beach". Patreon.
  97. ^ Majumdar, Nivedita (Fall 2019). "Labor, Love, and Capital". Catalyst. 3 (3).
  98. ^ Seymour, Richard (27 January 2022). "Abolition: Notes on a Normie Shitstorm". Salvage. Retrieved 20 May 2024.
  99. ^ "Salvage Live: Toward Reproductive Freedom". Haymarket Books.
  100. ^ Lewis, Sophie [@reproutopia] (22 May 2019). "Tucker Carlson wants me on his show. Friends helped me know what to say" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  101. ^ "A radical defence of abortion | Sophie Lewis". YouTube. 4 June 2019.
  102. ^ Lewis, Sophie (2020). "Hello to My Haters: Tucker Carlson's Mob and Me". Dissent Magazine. Retrieved 20 May 2024.
  103. ^ Lewis, Sophie (March 2023). "Mothering Against Motherhood" (PDF). haters cafe.
  104. ^ "Sideways – 34. It Takes a Village". Listener's Guide. Retrieved 20 May 2024.
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