Dr Alexander Stoffel, BA (Oxford), MSc (LSE), PhD (QMUL)

Profile

I joined SPIR as a Lecturer in International Politics in September 2023. I was previously a Fellow in Qualitative Methodology at the London School of Economics. My research takes up critical questions regarding the intersections of sexuality, race, and desire within capitalist expansion.

My first book, Eros and Empire: The Transnational Struggle for Sexual Freedom in the United States, is forthcoming with Stanford University Press.

I am currently an editor of the journal Historical Materialism, where I convene the Sexuality and Political Economy Network.

For a CV and further information, visit my website.

Office hour booking link

Undergraduate Teaching

POL3003 – Gender, Sexuality, and Capitalism (Sem A)

POL271 – Qualitative Methods for Social Science Research (Sem B)

Research

Research Interests:

• Queer, gender, and sexuality studies
• International Relations theory
• Social movement history
• Marxist theory
• Global Historical Sociology
• Intellectual history
• Affect theory
• Psychoanalysis
• Qualitative methodology

Examples of research funding:

My doctoral research was funded by the Leverhulme Trust.

Publications

Peer-reviewed articles

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), 852-876.

Stoffel, Alexander. 2022. “The Dialectic of the International: Elaborating the Historical Materialism of the Gay Liberationists.” International Studies Quarterly 66 (3), 0-12.

Stoffel, Alexander. 2021. “‘Homocapitalism’: Analytical Precursors and Future Directions.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 23 (1), 173-178.

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 publications

Stoffel, Alexander. 2024. “Seductions of the Nation-State: On Anti-Trans Feminism and Other Sexual Nationalisms.” Salvage, Issue 14 (Spring/Summer), 139-149.

Stoffel, Alexander and Ida Roland Birkvad. 2023. "Against Mystification, or What Went Wrong with Critical IR." E-International Relations, 25 August.

Stoffel, Alexander. 2022. “Sexual Freedom.” Queen Mary Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences (IHSS) Website.

Stoffel, Alexander. 2018. “International Relations Theory Will Be Intersectional or It Will Be… Better.” E-International Relations, 31 July.

Supervision

I welcome applications from candidates interested in working on gender, sexuality, imperialism, Marxism, histories of political struggle, or related fields.