Duke University Press

But it's like, just not even fitting in boxes.

So, you know, like Duke University Press, University of Minnesota Press kind of stick out to me as two publishers that are like that.

So, you know, those publishers aren't necessarily going to be so worried about you fitting into a But then for the other publishers, you know, again, it's about the audiences that they've cultivated.

So, you know, if they're very strong in one particular field, your job isn't necessarily to say, like, I'm the best, most, you know, orthodox member of this field with this book, but it's to really show what your book has to contribute to that field, even if the book itself, like its DNA is interdisciplinary.

Heather Berg was on this show in 2022 to discuss her book Porn Work, which covers relations of production in the world of commercial erotica.

She's just out with a new book, Notes from the Sex Worker Left, Lumpen Theory, published by Duke University Press.

It's a look at how that oft-maligned group thinks and talks about politics, from their view of the family, negative, and the state, also negative, to how they conceive of solidarity and care, positive.

Heather teaches labor studies and gender studies at UCLA.

That's not so interesting to me and to the thinkers that I'm most engaged with in the book.

Instead, from the perspective of this kind of lump and insurgency, it's about leaning into that and saying, yes, this pathology under the terms of a rotten system is something to be embraced and theorized from rather than disidentified with.

I'm speaking with Heather Berg, author of Notes from the Sex Worker Left, Lumpen Theory, from Duke University Press.

Many sex workers are refugees in their homes and are basically family abolitionists.

Sometimes, you know, I use my own self as an example because there's no way around it.

Well, I just kind of, I just send the book kind of cold to university presses, like the Harvard university press, Yale university press and Duke university press.

And I get an awesome letter back from this woman from Columbia.

Uh, she, she's like, well, I can't publish this book because you swear too much in it.

But it's like, just not even fitting in boxes.

So, you know, like Duke University Press, University of Minnesota Press kind of stick out to me as two publishers that are like that.

So, you know, those publishers aren't necessarily going to be so worried about you fitting into a But then for the other publishers, you know, again, it's about the audiences that they've cultivated.

So, you know, if they're very strong in one particular field, your job isn't necessarily to say, like, I'm the best, most, you know, orthodox member of this field with this book, but it's to really show what your book has to contribute to that field, even if the book itself, like its DNA is interdisciplinary.

But it's like, just not even fitting in boxes.

So, you know, like Duke University Press, University of Minnesota Press kind of stick out to me as two publishers that are like that.

So, you know, those publishers aren't necessarily going to be so worried about you fitting into a But then for the other publishers, you know, again, it's about the audiences that they've cultivated.

So, you know, if they're very strong in one particular field, your job isn't necessarily to say, like, I'm the best, most, you know, orthodox member of this field with this book, but it's to really show what your book has to contribute to that field, even if the book itself, like its DNA is interdisciplinary.

But it's like, just not even fitting in boxes.

So, you know, like Duke University Press, University of Minnesota Press kind of stick out to me as two publishers that are like that.

So, you know, those publishers aren't necessarily going to be so worried about you fitting into a But then for the other publishers, you know, again, it's about the audiences that they've cultivated.

So, you know, if they're very strong in one particular field, your job isn't necessarily to say, like, I'm the best, most, you know, orthodox member of this field with this book, but it's to really show what your book has to contribute to that field, even if the book itself, like its DNA is interdisciplinary.