Profit and Pleasure

Rosemary Hennessy is Professor of English and affiliated with the Center for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Rice University, USA. She has written extensively on materialist feminism.

"This new edition of Profit and Pleasure retains the political force of its 2000 precursor, where Hennessy argued that the seemingly subversive notion of queer identity has been largely appropriated by capital’s drive to accumulation. In a new postscript titled “What’s to threatening about transgender?”, Hennessy expands upon trans Marxism’s further “materialist break” from the “culture-bound line of inquiry” of queer theory. In its third incarnation, Profit and Pleasure offers a methodologically sophisticated and politically timely theoretical framework for grappling with the urgency of the current historical moment."- Barbara Foley, Distinguished Professor of English at Rutgers University, USA.“A welcome update to a Marxist Feminist classic! This new edition of Profit and Pleasure shows how the original book's lens of 'disidentification' can be applied to struggles around sex that have both flourished and intensified since it was first published. A vital addition to contemporary political thought!”- Juliana Gleeson, editor of TransMarx (2021) and author of HermLog (2025) and Listening Like A Girl (2026).Praise for previous editions"This new edition of Profit and Pleasure offers a poignant reminder that left critical thought does not need to choose between the so-called old and new materialisms. Using Marxist feminism as ‘living’ theory, Rosemary Hennessy tracks the intersections of structure and affect, identity and consumption, and nation and globe to reveal the ongoing intimacies between capitalism and sex." - Robyn Wiegman, Professor of Literature and Women’s Studies, Duke University, USA"We might finally be catching up with this book. Impatience with maps of the present that fail to articulate sexuality and capital has become increasingly widespread, and the political costs of such failure harder to miss. Nearly twenty years after Profit and Pleasure first appeared, it is clear that this book was ahead of its time – and that its time is now."- Kevin Floyd, author of The Reification of Desire and Associate Professor of English at Kent State University, USA"One of less than a handful of extended critical examinations of the relationship between sexuality and capitalism, Profit and Pleasure is a prescient engagement with the nexus of desire, affect, and neoliberal capitalism. Hennessy’s valuable new introduction acknowledges and situates the book in relation to more recent scholarship as well as changes in the political-economic context. But the original work stands on its own." - Miranda Joseph, Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies, University of Arizona, USA"This book is a must. It focuses on a highly contested terrain: the production of desire. But it never falls into the trap of just following a fashion; unlike many other books, it wants to be useful to its readers, wants to give women more capacity of action by showing how to intervene into the conditions of their lives."- Frigga Haug, author of Female Sexualization and Beyond FemaleMasochism"A must-read. Hennessy gives us a brilliant new Marxist feminist analysis of the commodification of culture in global capitalism and the creation and management of sexual identities. Her historical approach uncovers problems not only with classical identity politics but also with postmodern queer theory and politics with incisive criticisms of Althusser, Williams, Butler and De Lauretis. Unlike some books which do not connect to practice, she sketches a radical collective politics that provides a plausible alternative to the theories she critiques." - Ann Ferguson, Professor Emerita of Philosophy and Women's Studies at University of Massachusetts, USA

• 1 Setting the Terms 2 The Material of Sex 3 Cultural Study, Commodity Logic, Sexual Subjects 4 Queer Visibility in Commodity Culture 5 Sexual Alibis, Colonial Displacements: Materializing Myth in The Crying Game 6 Desire as a Class Act: Lesbian in Late Capitalism 7 Identity, Need, and the Making of Revolutionary Love Afterword