LOVE IN A FUCKED UP WORLD: Dean Spade on relationships & raising hell with Nat Raha & WU TSANG

Love in a F*cked-Up World is a resounding call to action and a practical manifesto for how to combat cultural scripts and take our relationships into our own hands, preparing us for the work of changing the world.

Lifelong activist and educator Dean Spade dares us to decide that our interpersonal actions are not separate from our politics of liberation and resistance - we are thrilled to collaborate with Queer.ed and IASH to host an Edinburgh launch with Dean, unpacking all the above with Wu Tsang and Nat Raha!

We all know it takes guts to fight injustice and inequality. But how often do we bring those same values into our most intimate relationships? In this inspiring handbook, luminary trans activist and author of Mutual Aid Dean Spade challenges us to be the change we want to see--both in the world, and at home.

Around the globe, people are faced with a spiraling succession of crises, from the pandemic and climate change-induced disasters to the ongoing horrors of mass incarceration, racist policing, endemic gender violence, and severe wealth inequality. Many of us feel mobilized to organize and collectively combat these issues on both a personal and political level, often dedicating our lives to the forwarding of progressive ideas and the daunting goal of trying to bend the world toward justice. But even those of us who long for change seem to have trouble when it comes to interpersonal relationships. Too often we think of our political values as outward-facing positions again dominant systems of power. Rarely, if ever, do we pursue the same kind of justice close to home, in our personal connections.

Many activist projects and resistance groups fall apart because people treat each other poorly, trying desperately to live out the cultural myths about dating and relationships that we are fed from an early age.

How do we divest from the idea that one romantic partner will be the solution to all our problems? How do we separate our expectations of love from the troubling dynamics left to us by our parents? How do we bring our best thinking about freedom and justice into step with our desires for healing and connection?

About the author:

Dean Spade has been working to build queer and trans liberation based in racial and economic justice for the past two decades. He is a professor at the Seattle University School of Law.

He is the author of Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics and the Limits of Law and second book, Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the next), was published by Verso Press in October 2020.

About the co-discussants:

Wu Tsang is an American filmmaker and visual artist known for her work that explores issues of identity, race, and queer communities. Her films and immersive installations often blend documentary and fiction, focusing on marginalized voices and histories.

Dr Nat Raha is a poet and activist-scholar. Her books of poetry include apparitions (nines) and of sirens, body & faultlines, and with Mijke van der Drift, Nat is co-author of Trans Femme Futures, as well as co-editor of Radical Transfeminism zine. Nat has been involved in LGBTQ+ collective organising in Edinburgh, London and beyond for over a decade.

About our collaborators:

IASH- The Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh is one of the world's premier Institutes for Advanced Study, supporting innovative research and public engagement activities across the arts, humanities and social sciences through a range of interdisciplinary and international projects and programmes.