Books by Carrie Lou Hamilton
Published under C. Lou Hamilton -- Veganism is so much more than what we eat. It’s about striving... more Published under C. Lou Hamilton -- Veganism is so much more than what we eat. It’s about striving to live an ethical life in a profoundly unethical world. Is being vegan difficult or is it now easier than ever? What does veganism have to do with wider struggles for social justice – feminism, LGBTQ+ politics, anti-racism, environmentalism? This compulsively readable book dives deep into the heart of these questions. Veganism, Sex and Politics explores the potential dangers and irresistible pleasures of living a vegan life.
In Sexual Revolutions in Cuba Carrie Hamilton delves into the relationship between passion and po... more In Sexual Revolutions in Cuba Carrie Hamilton delves into the relationship between passion and politics in revolutionary Cuba to present a comprehensive history of sexuality on the island from the triumph of the Revolution in 1959 into the twenty-first century. Drawing on an unused body of oral history interviews as well as press accounts, literary works, and other published sources, Hamilton pushes beyond official government rhetoric and explores how the wider changes initiated by the Revolution have affected the sexual lives of Cuban citizens. She foregrounds the memories and emotions of ordinary Cubans and compares these experiences with changing policies and wider social, political, and economic developments to reveal the complex dynamic between sexual desire and repression in revolutionary Cuba.
Showing how revolutionary and prerevolutionary values coexist in a potent and sometimes contradictory mix, Hamilton addresses changing patterns in heterosexual relations, competing views of masculinity and femininity, same-sex relationships and homophobia, AIDS, sexual violence, interracial relationships, and sexual tourism. Hamilton's examination of sexual experiences across generations and social groups demonstrates that sexual politics have been integral to the construction of a new revolutionary Cuban society.
Drawing on a unique body of oral history interviews, archival material and published sources, thi... more Drawing on a unique body of oral history interviews, archival material and published sources, this book shows how women’s participation in radical Basque nationalism has changed from the founding of ETA in 1959 to the present. It analyses several aspects of women’s nationalist activism: collaboration and direct activism in ETA, cultural movements, motherhood, prison and feminism. By focusing on gender politics Women and ETA offers new perspectives on the history of ETA, including recruitment, the militarization of radical Basque nationalism, and the role of the media in shaping popular understandings of ‘terrorism’. These arguments are directly relevant to the study of women in other insurgence and terrorist movements.
The book will be of interest to scholars and students of history, Hispanic studies, gender studies, anthropology and politics, as well as to journalists and readers interested in women’s participation in contemporary conflicts and terrorist movements.
Book Translations by Carrie Lou Hamilton
Articles by Carrie Lou Hamilton
Memory Studies, 2019
This article brings memory studies and queer theory into conversation with animal studies through... more This article brings memory studies and queer theory into conversation with animal studies through an examination of the process of mourning involved in giving up the use of animal products. Focusing on the use of leather in some queer subcultures, and combining autoethnographic reflection with other forms of testimony, the article argues that giving up leather involves a dual process of mourning: for the lives of the animals whose skins are used in those practices and for the intrahuman attachments and forms of care, pleasure and memory facilitated through those practices. Inspired by recent queer research on leather as a material and ‘mnemonic technology’, the article contributes to research on the use of animal products in the transmission of transgenerational human memory, going beyond food and the heteronormative framework of the family. It also adds new dimensions to the growing literature on veganism by asking readers to take seriously the ambivalence involved in giving up animal products where their use is saturated with memories of human community.
The Oral History Review
Abstract This article brings oral history into conversation with animal studies. It does so throu... more Abstract This article brings oral history into conversation with animal studies. It does so through an analysis of the themes of witnessing and mourning in a life story interview with an early Spanish animal welfare activist. I argue that this interview, which revolves largely around the interrelated processes of witnessing and mourning animal and human lives, provides a lens through which to view the diversity of human-animal relations in one life story. In addition to reviewing some of the existing literature on animals in oral history, the article draws on a range of current discussions in animal studies by such thinkers as Colin Jerolmack, Donna Haraway, Chloë Taylor, and Alice Kuzniar. Through this transdisciplinary approach, the article encourages oral historians to be more attentive to other-than-human animals in their research and demonstrates that oral history can contribute valuable evidence about animal lives and human-animal relations to the emerging field of animal history.
Feminist Review, 2016
Since the publication of The Sexual Politics of Meat in 1990, activist and writer Carol J. Adams ... more Since the publication of The Sexual Politics of Meat in 1990, activist and writer Carol J. Adams (2000 [1990]) has put forth a feminist defence of veganism based on the argument that meat consumption and violence against animals are structurally related to violence against women, and especially to pornography and prostitution. Adams’ work has been influential in the growing fields of animal studies and posthumanism, where her research is frequently cited as the prime example of vegan feminism. However, her particular radical feminist framework, including her anti-pornography and anti-prostitution arguments, are rarely acknowledged or critiqued. This article challenges the premises of Adams’ argument, demonstrating that her version of vegan feminism is based upon an unsubstantiated comparison between violence against women and violence against other-than-human animals, and on the silencing and exclusion of sex workers as subjects. The article contests the limited reading of Adams, and of feminism, offered in some key works in animal studies and posthumanism, at the same time that it recognises the need to challenge the anthropocentrism evident in much feminist theory. By way of alternative approaches to the sexual politics of veganism, the article highlights the interventions of artist and activist Mirha-Soleil Ross, proposing that her situated and embodied commitment to animal rights brings sex worker agency into the story, while resisting simple comparisons among different forms of violence. The concerns raised by Ross overlap in compelling ways with recent research in performance studies and labour history, bringing the question of work and workers, animal and human, to the fore. These studies point towards a potentially more useful framework than that of Adams for understanding the human violence suffered by different species, including those destined to be eaten by people.
Feminist Review, 2016
Since the publication of The Sexual Politics of Meat in 1990, activist and writer Carol J. Adams ... more Since the publication of The Sexual Politics of Meat in 1990, activist and writer Carol J. Adams (2000 [1990]) has put forth a feminist defence of veganism based on the argument that meat consumption and violence against animals are structurally related to violence against women, and especially to pornography and prostitution. Adams’ work has been influential in the growing fields of animal studies and posthumanism, where her research is frequently cited as the prime example of vegan feminism. However, her particular radical feminist framework, including her anti-pornography and anti-prostitution arguments, are rarely acknowledged or critiqued. This article challenges the premises of Adams’ argument, demonstrating that her version of vegan feminism is based upon an unsubstantiated comparison between violence against women and violence against other-than-human animals, and on the silencing and exclusion of sex workers as subjects. The article contests the limited reading of Adams, an...
Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios Críticos Animales, 2019
Traducción al español del texto de Carrie Hamilton "Sex, work, meat: The feminist politics of veg... more Traducción al español del texto de Carrie Hamilton "Sex, work, meat: The feminist politics of veganism"
Desde la publicación de The Sexual Politics of Meat (La política sexual de la carne), en 1990, la activista y escritora Carol J. Adams (2000 [1990]) ha expuesto una defensa feminista del veganismo, basada en la tesis de que el consumo de carne y la violencia contra los animales están estructuralmente relacionados con la violencia hacia las mujeres y, especialmente, con la pornografía y la prostitución. El trabajo de Adams ha ejercido gran influencia en los crecientes campos de los estudios animales y el posthumanismo en los que su trabajo de investigación es a menudo citado como el principal ejemplo del feminismo vegano. Sin embargo, su particular enfoque feminista radical, incluyendo sus argumentos contra la pornografía y la prostitución, rara vez son reconocidos o examinados. Este artículo refuta las premisas del argumento de Adams, al demostrar que su versión del feminismo vegano se basa en una comparación sin fundamento entre la violencia contra las mujeres y la violencia contra animales no humanos, así como en el silenciamiento y la exclusión de las trabajadoras sexuales en tanto sujetos. En este artículo se critica la lectura limitada de Adams y del feminismo que se ofrece en algunos trabajos clave en estudios animales y en el posthumanismo, a la vez que se reconoce la necesidad de señalar el antropocentrismo evidente en gran parte de la teoría feminista. Mediante el uso de enfoques alternativos con respecto a las políticas sexuales del veganismo, el artículo destaca las intervenciones de la artista y activista Mirha-Soleil Ross y plantea que su compromiso declarado y encarnado con los derechos de los animales trae a escena el tema de las trabajadoras sexuales, al tiempo que resiste comparaciones simples entre diferentes formas de violencia. Las preocupaciones que plantea Ross se suman de manera fundamentada con la investigación reciente sobre los estudios de performatividad y la historia laboral, lo que pone en primer plano la cuestión del trabajo y los trabajadores, animales y humanos. Estos estudios apuntan hacia un enfoque potencialmente más útil que el de Adams para comprender la violencia humana que padecen diversas especies, tales como las destinadas al consumo.
Ayer , 2015
This article examines the relationship between emotions, politics and subjectivity in a series of... more This article examines the relationship between emotions, politics and subjectivity in a series of interviews with animal welfare activists in Britain in the second half of the twentieth century. It combines the affective methodology of oral history with a dialogue between the historiography of emotions, critical animal studies, and feminist and queer theory. The interviews are documents of their time, reflecting a defense of animals based on their capacity to suffer, and the defense of “rational” arguments above emotions. But verbal and non-verbal evidence in the interviews also tell stories about the affective relationships and kinship ties between the activista and animals in their lives, suggesting new ways of conceptualising historical subjectivity.
Rethinking History, 2011
This study explores some of the tensions between personal narratives and the representation of pu... more This study explores some of the tensions between personal narratives and the representation of public history in revolutionary Cuba, through an examination of the testimonio of two prostitutes in the pre-revolutionary period, Tomás Fernández Robaina's Recuerdos secretos de dos mujeres públicas [The secret recollections of two public women] (Havana: Letras Cubanas, 1984). Contrasting the prominent position of the pre-revolutionary prostitute as symbolic of the imperial and capitalist exploitation of Cuban women in public representations of revolutionary history with the lack of historical research on the lives of prostitutes before 1959, the author argues that the voices of the two women presented in Recuerdos secretos challenge the construction of the revolutionary subject typical of testimonio in Cuba, as it offers evidence of everyday life in the past which challenges the public history of public women in the prerevolutionary period.
Rethinking History 15, 2, pp. 175-88., 2011
Oral History, 2010
This articlelexplores how, in interviews with women involved in nationalist and feminist politics... more This articlelexplores how, in interviews with women involved in nationalist and feminist politics in the Basque county, di#erent political movements are associated with di#erent emotions. .In so doing, it draws on recent cultural theories of emotions as well as the history of emotions. The article looks at how certain emotions become attach.ed to a specific political movement while other feel-
Global South, 2010
This paper explores some of the key dimensions of the history of AIDS in Cuba, through a review o... more This paper explores some of the key dimensions of the history of AIDS in Cuba, through a review of recent debates about Cuban AIDS policy, and an analysis of an oral history interview with a young Cuban man living with AIDS. Focussing on a
series of issues in one interview, the article aims to identify a number of key themes in the history of Cuban AIDS, and to highlight the challenges of writing such a history. These challenges are inextricably linked to the intensely ideological debates surrounding the history– and future– of the Cuban Revolution.
Journal of Romance Studies, 2009
This article investigates how the second-wave feminist emphasis on women's experience and first-p... more This article investigates how the second-wave feminist emphasis on women's experience and first-person testimony manifests itself in feminist use of new technologies, in particular the web log or blog. Drawing on feminist theories of testimony and witnessing, as well as academic literature on the internet and new media, I analyse a number of feminist anti-prostitution and anti-pornography blogs in which the blogger positions herself as witness to the suffering of female sex workers. Although such blogs challenge different forms of exploitation in the sex industry, they tend to ignore the complexity of that industry and simplify the stories of women working in it, privileging experiences of suffering and victimhood and discrediting testimonies of sex workers who do not identify as victims. I conclude that although the blogosphere creates new fora for feminist networking and the creation of community, it simultaneously re-creates old forms of exclusion and divisions within feminism.
Journal of Romance Studies, 2009
This article investigates how the second-wave feminist emphasis on women's experience and first-p... more This article investigates how the second-wave feminist emphasis on women's experience and first-person testimony manifests itself in feminist use of new technologies, in particular the web log or blog. Drawing on feminist theories of testimony and witnessing, as well as academic literature on the internet and new media, I analyse a number of feminist anti-prostitution and anti-pornography blogs in which the blogger positions herself as witness to the suffering of female sex workers. Although such blogs challenge different forms of exploitation in the sex industry, they tend to ignore the complexity of that industry and simplify the stories of women working in it, privileging experiences of suffering and victimhood and discrediting testimonies of sex workers who do not identify as victims. I conclude that although the blogosphere creates new fora for feminist networking and the creation of community, it simultaneously re-creates old forms of exclusion and divisions within feminism.
Gender & History, 2009
This article examines the interconnectedness of home and housing in oral history interviews with ... more This article examines the interconnectedness of home and housing in oral history interviews with Cubans about their lives since the revolution of 1959. Historians and other scholars of the Cuban Revolution usually treat housing and home as separate issues. This article historicises the relationship between housing policy and the politics of home and family in revolutionary Cuba, drawing on feminist critiques of socialist housing policy as well as feminist and queer theorisations of sexuality and space. I conclude by making the case for comparative histories of sexuality and housing, arguing that an analysis of housing highlights intersections of class, race, gender and sexuality.
Gender & History, 2009
Feminists have long been concerned with the question of home. Historians of gender and the family... more Feminists have long been concerned with the question of home. Historians of gender and the family have investigated gendered divisions of labour in the household and 'public' sphere, 1 while theorists of migration and globalisation have turned their attention to discourses of home among those displaced by conflict, genocide and/or the search for economic security. 2 Feminist geographers have studied the gendered construction of urban and rural spaces, including the domestic. More recently, concerns with women and gender have expanded to include sexuality, as historians, geographers and queer theorists analyse the construction of sexual terrains. But notwithstanding the expansive feminist and queer literature on homes and space, this work as a whole pays relatively little attention to housing issues. While contemporary studies of gender, sexuality, home and space sometimes address inequalities in access to housing, most have little to say about the sexual politics of housing policy and provision, their relationship to gendered and sexualised discourses and power regimes, and the vastly different material contexts in which homes are built -literally and figuratively -across time and space. Generally, moreover, this literature displays a bias towards Western, capitalist societies and a lack of attention to developing, socialist or transitional economies. This article addresses some of these imbalances by examining the interconnectedness of home and housing in revolutionary Cuba. It begins by reviewing the secondary literature on Cuban housing and the family, respectively, before analysing a series of interviews from the 'Memories of the Cuban Revolution' oral history project. The related problems of finding a house and being 'at home' run through most of the interviews. While popular and official rhetoric in Cuba, as in most nation-states, often celebrates the family as the centre of national identity, the interviews complicate this narrative, highlighting sites of family conflict as well as support. Family disputes and disunity are exacerbated by gender inequalities, homophobia, racism and an ongoing, acute housing shortage. Historians of race in Cuba have made the link between weaknesses in revolutionary housing policy and persistent racial inequalities. This article supplements that work, arguing that the history of housing and homes since 1959 is tied as well to the regime's gender and sexual politics. However, historians and other scholars of the Cuban Revolution usually treat housing and home as separate issues.
Uploads
Books by Carrie Lou Hamilton
Showing how revolutionary and prerevolutionary values coexist in a potent and sometimes contradictory mix, Hamilton addresses changing patterns in heterosexual relations, competing views of masculinity and femininity, same-sex relationships and homophobia, AIDS, sexual violence, interracial relationships, and sexual tourism. Hamilton's examination of sexual experiences across generations and social groups demonstrates that sexual politics have been integral to the construction of a new revolutionary Cuban society.
The book will be of interest to scholars and students of history, Hispanic studies, gender studies, anthropology and politics, as well as to journalists and readers interested in women’s participation in contemporary conflicts and terrorist movements.
Book Translations by Carrie Lou Hamilton
Articles by Carrie Lou Hamilton
Desde la publicación de The Sexual Politics of Meat (La política sexual de la carne), en 1990, la activista y escritora Carol J. Adams (2000 [1990]) ha expuesto una defensa feminista del veganismo, basada en la tesis de que el consumo de carne y la violencia contra los animales están estructuralmente relacionados con la violencia hacia las mujeres y, especialmente, con la pornografía y la prostitución. El trabajo de Adams ha ejercido gran influencia en los crecientes campos de los estudios animales y el posthumanismo en los que su trabajo de investigación es a menudo citado como el principal ejemplo del feminismo vegano. Sin embargo, su particular enfoque feminista radical, incluyendo sus argumentos contra la pornografía y la prostitución, rara vez son reconocidos o examinados. Este artículo refuta las premisas del argumento de Adams, al demostrar que su versión del feminismo vegano se basa en una comparación sin fundamento entre la violencia contra las mujeres y la violencia contra animales no humanos, así como en el silenciamiento y la exclusión de las trabajadoras sexuales en tanto sujetos. En este artículo se critica la lectura limitada de Adams y del feminismo que se ofrece en algunos trabajos clave en estudios animales y en el posthumanismo, a la vez que se reconoce la necesidad de señalar el antropocentrismo evidente en gran parte de la teoría feminista. Mediante el uso de enfoques alternativos con respecto a las políticas sexuales del veganismo, el artículo destaca las intervenciones de la artista y activista Mirha-Soleil Ross y plantea que su compromiso declarado y encarnado con los derechos de los animales trae a escena el tema de las trabajadoras sexuales, al tiempo que resiste comparaciones simples entre diferentes formas de violencia. Las preocupaciones que plantea Ross se suman de manera fundamentada con la investigación reciente sobre los estudios de performatividad y la historia laboral, lo que pone en primer plano la cuestión del trabajo y los trabajadores, animales y humanos. Estos estudios apuntan hacia un enfoque potencialmente más útil que el de Adams para comprender la violencia humana que padecen diversas especies, tales como las destinadas al consumo.
series of issues in one interview, the article aims to identify a number of key themes in the history of Cuban AIDS, and to highlight the challenges of writing such a history. These challenges are inextricably linked to the intensely ideological debates surrounding the history– and future– of the Cuban Revolution.
Showing how revolutionary and prerevolutionary values coexist in a potent and sometimes contradictory mix, Hamilton addresses changing patterns in heterosexual relations, competing views of masculinity and femininity, same-sex relationships and homophobia, AIDS, sexual violence, interracial relationships, and sexual tourism. Hamilton's examination of sexual experiences across generations and social groups demonstrates that sexual politics have been integral to the construction of a new revolutionary Cuban society.
The book will be of interest to scholars and students of history, Hispanic studies, gender studies, anthropology and politics, as well as to journalists and readers interested in women’s participation in contemporary conflicts and terrorist movements.
Desde la publicación de The Sexual Politics of Meat (La política sexual de la carne), en 1990, la activista y escritora Carol J. Adams (2000 [1990]) ha expuesto una defensa feminista del veganismo, basada en la tesis de que el consumo de carne y la violencia contra los animales están estructuralmente relacionados con la violencia hacia las mujeres y, especialmente, con la pornografía y la prostitución. El trabajo de Adams ha ejercido gran influencia en los crecientes campos de los estudios animales y el posthumanismo en los que su trabajo de investigación es a menudo citado como el principal ejemplo del feminismo vegano. Sin embargo, su particular enfoque feminista radical, incluyendo sus argumentos contra la pornografía y la prostitución, rara vez son reconocidos o examinados. Este artículo refuta las premisas del argumento de Adams, al demostrar que su versión del feminismo vegano se basa en una comparación sin fundamento entre la violencia contra las mujeres y la violencia contra animales no humanos, así como en el silenciamiento y la exclusión de las trabajadoras sexuales en tanto sujetos. En este artículo se critica la lectura limitada de Adams y del feminismo que se ofrece en algunos trabajos clave en estudios animales y en el posthumanismo, a la vez que se reconoce la necesidad de señalar el antropocentrismo evidente en gran parte de la teoría feminista. Mediante el uso de enfoques alternativos con respecto a las políticas sexuales del veganismo, el artículo destaca las intervenciones de la artista y activista Mirha-Soleil Ross y plantea que su compromiso declarado y encarnado con los derechos de los animales trae a escena el tema de las trabajadoras sexuales, al tiempo que resiste comparaciones simples entre diferentes formas de violencia. Las preocupaciones que plantea Ross se suman de manera fundamentada con la investigación reciente sobre los estudios de performatividad y la historia laboral, lo que pone en primer plano la cuestión del trabajo y los trabajadores, animales y humanos. Estos estudios apuntan hacia un enfoque potencialmente más útil que el de Adams para comprender la violencia humana que padecen diversas especies, tales como las destinadas al consumo.
series of issues in one interview, the article aims to identify a number of key themes in the history of Cuban AIDS, and to highlight the challenges of writing such a history. These challenges are inextricably linked to the intensely ideological debates surrounding the history– and future– of the Cuban Revolution.
the pleasures of gay male sex, as well as the joys of childhood. I argue that scholars of cultural memory can learn from recent developments in the study of emotions and that, in particular, a consideration of happy memories can provide an alternative to the emphasis on suffering in much academic literature on memory.
concerned with the relationship between the personal and the political, the private and the public, the individual and collective. For historians such as myself, the study of memory and emotion additionally poses challenging questions about evidence, reliability and authenticity. How can we know that the memories recorded in a life story are accurate reflections of past events, or that the emotions they express represent
how people really felt in the past? I argue that most contemporary cultural research on memory rests upon a set of assumptions about emotions, in particular that those things that people remember best are experiences associated with strong emotions. However, the interrelationship between cultural memory and the emotions is often not explicitly theorised. In this paper I want to outline a few of the areas where a further theorisation of the memory/emotion relationship could be beneficial and offer some possible routes for exploration.