This was my most eagerly awaited book of the year and it does not disappoint. A powerful, utterly engaging read and a vital call to action. Sophie K Rosa analyses how current conditions restrict our capacity for caring relationships with ourselves and others, and how these conditions can be implicated in so many forms of intimate violence, injustice and loss. A must read’ saw hot strike summer unfold across the UK. A wave of collective action took workplaces by storm, with employees demanding change as the cost of living crisis laid bare the scale of worker exploitation – all while CEOs and executives made (and continue to make) astronomical profits. Troublemaking combines years of conversations with workers on the frontlines across the globe with clear points for action. Written by two union members who have experience in organising, this book is a great entry point if you’re new to the world of unionising and worker solidarity.

We believe everyone deserves the gift of wellness, regardless of their finances. This is why we offer three pricing tiers — and yes, you get the same content no matter what you pay.I didn't find the writing style particularly easy to engage with. Some of the anecdotes were nice and really grounded the ideas in what is otherwise an incredibly theory-heavy read. I especially enjoyed the passage where Sophie and her friend dressed up as rich people to spy on Ballymore housing developers, but mostly I felt myself pushing towards the end of the book because it was fairly short and I couldn't justify giving up when I was already halfway done. A clarion voice from a new generation of British feminists ... I was gripped' - Sophie Lewis, author of Abolish the Family As The Argonauts seems to suggest, perhaps intimacy, with (and despite) its problems, might offer new insights that are grounded in empathy, but nevertheless generative. Nelson’s work embraces the messiness, complexity and contradictions that are inherent in all social life: in our ideas, institutions and within each individual.

Every course includes access to a private online community with fellow course members. Ask questions, share your stories, and enjoy benefiting from the encouragement and wisdom of others. A narrative guide and practical methodology for nurturing and sustaining our relationships with ourselves, others, and the world. P roposes radical answers for people longing for real intimacy, just as she proposes the need to centre all forms of intimacy as radical praxis. We are invited to look for the possibilities of abundant post-capitalist relating, and how they might nurture us in overcoming the systems which trap us in scarcity. It’s great. Please read it!’ With such words, the book is likely to cause some yearning for the new world Rosa envisions. The call to action is strong; she is asking, with compassion and conviction, for collective liberation and for a revolution.A punchy and impassioned account of inspiring ideas about alternative ways to live … Radical Intimacy is the compassionate antidote to a callous society’ What are the ethical implications of telling another’s story? Who gets to speak and why? What are the limits of the citation and can we exist beyond it? If our world is so bound up in questions of the seeable and sayable, then what power is enacted when we foreground the bodies, minds and lives of others in our work? In this, Rosa discusses a few (non-exhaustive) areas such as death, healthcare, family, and work. I found myself drawn more towards the discussions of death (and caring), as it (unsurprisingly) isn't something I've considered in a collective sense. Personally what would've elevated this discussion more is bringing in Freud's Death Drive theory, particularly Edelman's use of it in relation to the child, as I noticed children, The Child, adult centrism sentiments, etc weren't really brought in, bar when considering the concept of 'youth'. Most people don’t think about their love lives in terms of capitalism," writes Sophie K Rosa in her book Radical Intimacy. "But how we practise and speak about such relationships is revealing."

The standout stuff for me was the criticism of psychiatry, the pathologization of trauma, and the way that mental illness is so racialised in the UK. I'd probably recommend these sections to others even though I didn't vibe with most of the rest of the book because it was really cohesive and the conclusions that were drawn were presented so well. Left to its own devices, the world cannot hold us. The colliding global crises of capitalism – in ecological collapse and in the rising tide of fascism – threaten the fabric of communities and the lives that compose them," Rosa writes. "We must hold each other, as we remake a world that can." The Argonauts is a beautiful meditation on queer love, kinship, mothering and the shifting nature of identities which is certain to move audiences. Using fragments, memories and quotes from friends, lovers, philosophers and mentors, Maggie Nelson captures the complexities of care, desire and devotion with fullness and depth of emotion.Some of this political work must come from within the intimate realm itself, as it always has. The Wages for Housework campaign – launched by the International Feminist Collective in 1972 – demanded that women’s labour in marriage and the nuclear household under capitalism be categorised as work, and therefore its refusal as strike. ‘They say it is love. We say it is unwaged work. They call it frigidity. We call it absenteeism’, proclaimed Federici’s Wages against Housework, explaining: "We want to call work what is work so that eventually we might rediscover what is love and create what will be our sexuality which we have never known." To this day, such resistance is invoked in calls – for example, by the actor Bette Midler in response to the 2021 anti-abortion law in Texas – for women to mount (heterosexual) sex strikes as a form of protest. Structural power overwhelmingly shapes the intimate realm; but the intimate realm must also organise to challenge structural power. Made me reconsider so many of the cultural scripts I've been fed my whole life. Unsparing, important and hopeful’ Through lenses such as family, self-care, sex, death, home, and friendship, Rosa looks into the limitations of intimacy in a capitalist world, exacerbated by ingrained notions of monogamy and by current political systems and policing of women's bodies. Cited frequently and fundamentally are contemporary writers and thinkers like Luke de Noronha, Katherine Angel, Mia Mingus, and Torrey Peters, alongside the likes of bell hooks, James Baldwin, and Audre Lorde. Rosa also peppers the book with contemporary examinations, ones that will resonate particularly with Britain's politically-conscious, pop-culture-inclined readers. The wildly popular British reality show Love Island is utilised to illustrate instances of toxic monogamy and infidelity; Britney Spears' curtailed freedom under a conservatorship is cited in a larger conversation surrounding family, ownership, and oppression.

A clarion voice from a new generation of British feminists accessibly expanding family-abolitionist thought and praxis into new spheres in response to a swingeing care crisis ... I was gripped’ I decided to read this after scanning the blurb and thinking "Huh, this reminds me of 'all about love' by bell hooks. I love that book!" 'all about love' is referenced a lot in Radical Intimacy, so I'm not surprised I came to that conclusion at first glance, but reading Radical Intimacy didn't inspire me with hope or make me question the fundamental concept of love, let alone to the extent that 'all about love' did. It was mostly a bummer. Decolonization is not an individual choice. We must collectively oppose a system of compulsory settler sexuality and family that continues building a nation upon Indigenous genocide and that makes Indigenous and other marginalized relations as deviant. This includes opposing norms and policies that reward normative kinship ties (e.g., monogamous legal marriage, nuclear biological family) over other forms of kinship obligation. Radical Intimacy scrutinises the reality of love and intimacy ... it also paints a moving alternative of what a different reality can offer. The call to action is strong; she is asking, with compassion and conviction, for collective liberation and for a revolution’With intimacy as the foundational principle of our existence, we can build a life based on what we truly need, not what we think we need or have been told we need. By embracing the practice of radical intimacy, I can confidently promise my readers a personal revolution of self-acceptance, appreciation, vitality, and confidence. And without fail, mind-blowing, soul-stirring, earth-shattering sex follows.” —Zoë Kors I do not wish to discredit The Argonauts on this basis. Nelson’s intention within this book was to ask difficult questions of herself, and to inspire her readers to do the same. In sitting in discomfort and reflecting, one can radically reimagine one’s own positionalities and politics. In particular, Nelson’s commentary on language and LGBTQI+ lives is an essential intervention in contemporary “post-gay” politics, which insist on monolithic representation of LGBTQI+ lives that often advocate for normalisation in line with cis-heterosexual hegemonies, as seen in the works by Ghaziani and Kampler and Connell. Capitalist ideology wants us to believe that there is an optimal way to live. 'Making connections' means networking for work. Our emotional needs are to be fulfilled by a single romantic partner, and self-care equates to taking personal responsibility for our suffering. Though Nelson mostly focuses on her own perspectives of her relationship with Dodge, her text is deeply reflexive throughout. The Argonauts is a work that highlights our need to be open to critique and to be accountable for ourselves, both through communication with others and through self-reflection. For sociologists, reflexivity is a key part of doing social research. As Hilton Als writes in his New Yorker reflection on The Argonauts, this book is an “articulation of [Nelson’s] many selves”. This is not only with regard to the many “Maggies” we as readers meet – Maggie the academic, Maggie the lover, Maggie the step-parent, Maggie the mother, Maggie the stalked – but also in how Nelson blends different aspects of her artistic and literary life into the prose itself. The book compounds the many elements of Nelson’s expansive oeuvre, where she has worked across and within poetry, criticism, non-fiction and memoir.