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

POL106 – Introduction to International Relations

POL251 – International Relations Theory

POL336 – Race and Anti-Racism in World Politics

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 0 (0), 1-25.
• 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), 173-78.

Blogs

• 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.