Alex Stoffel
Lecturer in International Politics
Queen Mary University of London
Expertise Gender and Sexuality, Imperialism and Empire, Marxist theory, Critical Methodology
Email a.w.stoffel@qmul.ac.uk
Twitter @StoffelAlex
ORCID 0000-0001-8165-8258
Address Queen Mary University of London
School of Politics and International Relations
ArtsOne Building, Mile End Road
London E1 4NS
ABOUT
Dr. Alexander Stoffel is a Lecturer in International Politics in the School of Politics and International Relations at Queen Mary University of London. He was previously a Fellow in Qualitative Methodology at the London School of Economics and holds degrees from the University of Oxford (BA History and Politics, 2014-17), the London School of Economics (MSc International Relations Theory, 2017-18), and Queen Mary University of London (PhD Political Science, 2019-23). His research takes up critical questions regarding the intersections of sexuality, race, and desire within capitalist expansion. He has published in, among other journals, International Studies Quarterly, European Journal of International Relations, and Salvage and is an editor of the journal Historical Materialism, where he co-convenes the Sexuality and Political Economy Network.
His first monograph, Eros and Empire: The Transnational Struggle for Sexual Freedom in the United States, is forthcoming with Stanford University Press (February 2025). Eros and Empire reconsiders US-based struggles for sexual freedom since the 1960s, centering their transnational relations, practices, and infrastructures, and derives from this history new perspectives on contemporary debates about queerness, capital accumulation, and empire.
SELECTED WRITING
Book
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Stoffel, Alexander. 2025. Eros and Empire: The Transnational Struggle for Sexual Freedom in the United States. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Journal articles
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Stoffel, Alexander and Ida Roland Birkvad. 2023. “Abstractions in International Relations: On the Mystification of Trans, Queer, and Subaltern Life in Critical Knowledge Production.” European Journal of International Relations 29 (4), 852-76.
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Stoffel, Alexander. 2022. “The Dialectic of the International: Elaborating the Historical Materialism of the Gay Liberationists.” International Studies Quarterly 66 (3), 0-12.
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Stoffel, Alexander. 2021. “‘Homocapitalism’: Analytical Precursors and Future Directions.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 23 (1), 173-78.
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Stoffel, Alexander. 2018. “The Challenge of Unintelligible Life: Critical Security Studies’ Failure to Account for Violence Against Queer People.” Politikon: The IAPSS Journal of Political Science 38, 48-63.
Other writing
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Stoffel, Alexander. 2024. "Seductions of the Nation-State: On Anti-Trans Feminism and Other Sexual Nationalisms." Salvage, Issue 14 (Spring/Summer).
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Stoffel, Alexander and Ida Roland Birkvad. 2023. "Against Mystification, or What Went Wrong with Critical IR." E-International Relations, 25 August.
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Stoffel, Alexander. 2018. “International Relations Theory Will Be Intersectional or It Will Be… Better.” E-International Relations, 31 July.
TEACHING
Queen Mary University
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POL3003 Gender, Sexuality and Capitalism (third-year undergraduate) -- Convenor
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POL271 Qualitative Methods for Social Science Research (second-year undergraduate) -- Convenor
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POLM017 Dissertation (postgraduate)
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POL318 Dissertation (third-year undergraduate)
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POL336 Race and Anti-Racism in World Politics (third-year undergraduate)
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POL251 International Relations Theory (second-year undergraduate)
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POL255 Colonialism, Capitalism, and Development (second-year undergraduate)
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POL106 Introduction to International Relations (first-year undergraduate)
LSE
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MY499 Dissertation in Social Research Methods (postgraduate)
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MY428 Qualitative Text and Discourse Analysis (postgraduate)
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MY4IR Research Design for International Relations (postgraduate)
Sciences Po Paris
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Critical International Relations Theories (third-year undergraduate)
INVITED SPEAKING
Public talks
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‘Transnational Struggle and the Bourgeois State Form’
Sex and the State, London, March 2024
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‘Who's our Enemy: Antagonism, Normativity, and Radicality in Queer Theory’
Beyond Radical: Queer Theory and the UK, Brighton, October 2023
Sexuality and Political Economy Network (Historical Materialism), March 2023
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‘Queer New Times’
Liberation Conference, Warwick University Student Union, February 2023
Eross Public Webinar Series, Dublin City University, September 2022
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‘The Dialectic of the International: Elaborating the Historical Materialism of the Gay Liberationists’
Queer Space Research Forum, University College London, February 2021
Podcast appearances
Politics and Pedagogy, November 2023
PhD — Pretty Honest Discussions, June 2022
Guest lectures
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‘Black Feminist Worldmaking: Difference, the Erotic, and the Question of Empire’
University of Exeter, Penryn Campus, October 2023
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‘Queer Theory, Gender Diversity, and International Politics’
Gender/ed/ing International Politics, LSE, March 2023
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‘The Roots of Global Inequality’
Sciences Po Le Havre, February 2021
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‘G for Gender’
Sciences Po Le Havre, November 2020
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‘Queer (International Relations) Theory’
University of Brasilia, May 2019
Workshops
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‘Postcolonial Historical Methods’
University of Sheffield, May 2024
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‘The Fundamentals of Dissertation Writing’
University of Exeter, Penryn Campus, October 2023
Roundtables
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‘Whose Queer Political Economy? Conversations Within and Beyond IPE’
BISA Annual Conference, Birmingham, June 2024
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‘The Global Politics of Barbie’
Global Politics Unbound, London March 2024
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‘Queer IR in a Smaller World: Politicizing Economies of Desire’
ISA Annual Convention, Nashville, March 2022