Nancy Fraser’s 2022 Benjamin lectures are inspired by W.E.B. Du Bois’ claim that 19^th century America had two labor movements, anti-slavery and trade unionism, which tragically failed to unite. Extending this idea to the present, Fraser proposes to add a third­: construing feminism, too, as a labor movement, focused on the work of care. Labor, she argues, forms the hidden link between gender, race, and class.

June 16^th – Class beyond Class: Toward a Counter-Hegemonic Politics

The previous lectures have revealed a political conundrum. The functional integration of the labor’s three faces is not matched by any comparable political integration among those associated with them. On the contrary, they appear divided in the classical triad: gender, race, and class. This lecture examines some political strategies for overcoming those separations–by linking the “three labor movements.”

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