Abolitionist Horizons

Public lecture by M. E. O’Brien.

In her lecture “Abolitionist Horizons,” M. E. O’Brien will consider abolition as a dimension of liberation movements of the past, present and imagined futures. Drawing from both her research on family abolition and her work in speculative fiction, she detail her own varied abolitionist methods in her own writing and their interrelationship.

Abolitionism can articulate and unfold the desires of present struggles, linked to speculative horizons and strategies. The lecture will trace the meaning of abolition in three interlinked traditions—struggles to overcome slavery and the carceral state, capitalism, and the family. Linking critical utopianism, direct practical activity in the present, and a mode of theoretical analysis, abolition is a method of revolutionary praxis. 

Bio

E. O’Brien writes and speaks on gender freedom and capitalism. She has written two books: Family Abolition: Capitalism and the Communizing of Care(Pluto Press, 2023) and a co-authored speculative novel, Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052–2072(Common Notions, 2022). She is a member of the editorial collective of Pinko, a magazine of gay communism. Her work on family abolition has been translated into Chinese, German, Greek, French, Spanish, Catalan, and Turkish. Previously, she coordinated the New York City Trans Oral History Project, and worked in HIV and AIDS activism and services. She completed a PhD at New York University, where she wrote on how capitalism shaped New York City LGBTQ social movements. She currently works and is in formation as a psychoanalyst in private practice in New York City.