Wire Wool presents
The Work Of Love with Alva Gotby
Join author and thinker Alva Gotby as she explores the perceptions and politics of emotional life. Is love work? Who performs this? Who benefits from it? How might we create more equal and meaningful connections?
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Join author and thinker Alva Gotby as she explores the perceptions and politics of emotional life. Is love work? Who performs this? Who benefits from it? How might we create more equal and meaningful connections?
In this talk, writer and organiser Alva Gotby will explore how emotion is structured under capitalism, who carries out the work of caring for others, and how we can begin to reimagine this work. We all have emotional needs, but we could meet those needs in very different ways. Drawing on the tradition of Wages for Housework, an international feminist collective active in the 1970s, Alva will look at how society depends on hidden forms of emotional care.
Alva Gotby is a writer and organiser living in London. She holds a PhD in Media Studies from University of West London, and writes about feminist theory and politics. Her first book They Call It Love: The Politics of Emotional Life (Verso 2023) explores the role of emotion and intimate relationships in the reproduction of capitalist society. Her forthcoming book Feeling at Home: Towards a Transformative Politics of Housing (Verso 2025) investigates housing and domesticity in relation to gender, race, disability and family in contemporary society.
Praise for Alva Gotby’s ‘They Call It Love’:
“Intellectually nourished my thinking and language on gender” – Raymond Antrobus, Best Books of 2023, Granta
45min talk, followed by opportunity for audience questions.
Win a copy of Alva Gotby’s book ‘They Call It Love’ in the raffle – proceeds go to START.