BGSQDBureau of General Services—Queer Division
BGSQD
Please join us online for a discussion about the newly released Queer Tolstoy: A Psychobiography with author Javier Sethness Castro and Joe Scheip, coordinator of Anarchist Political Ecology.
Queer Tolstoy is a multidimensional work combining psychoanalysis, political history, LGBTQ+ studies, sexology, ethics, and theology to explore the life and art of Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy. Our conversation will begin by contemplating queerness as a concept, based in the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud’s ideas of universal bisexuality and polymorphous perversity. We will review Tolstoy’s same-sex attachments, from childhood to old age, and consider how the artist’s underappreciated queerness influenced his anarchist and anti-militarist politics. We will not, however, shy away from Lev’s contradictions and hypocrisy, whether as a landlord, a sexist, or a difficult husband to Sofia Tolstaya. Finally, before turning to Q&A with the audience, we will contrast Tolstoy’s vision of free love and universal peace with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s fascist crackdown on the LGBTQ+ community and genocidal wars on Syria and Ukraine.
Copies of Queer Tolstoy: A Psychobiography (Routledge, 2023, paperback, $44.95) are available at the Bureau’s physical store and on our online store:
Thank you for supporting the Bureau by purchasing books from us!
This event will take place online only. In order to join the event on Zoom, please register on the event page on Eventbrite:
Also live-streaming at YouTube.com/@bgsqd
Javier Sethness Castro encourages attendees to donate to Solidarity Collectives in support of anti-authoritarian fighters in Ukraine.
Javier Sethness Castro is a primary-care provider, and the author and editor of four other books: namely, Imperiled Life, For a Free Nature, Eros and Revolution, and I Am Action.
Joe Scheip is a father to Dachshunds, an exploited proletarian, a hater of fascism, and the coordinator of Anarchist Political Ecology.