European, Comparative & Transnational Research Hub Seminar - For a Queer Materialist Critique of EU Law: About Law as an Ideological State Apparatus and Heterosexuality as a Mode of Production

LSE has a long tradition as the home of the world’s leading scholars in the areas of European, Comparative and Transnational Law. Our key interests lie in critically examining the interaction between different jurisdictions, with special attention to the social, economic and political implications of transnational regulation. Our expertise includes EU law, ECHR law, environmental law, private international law, transnational law and comparative law.

On Thursday 26 November 2026, Davide Tomaselli (visiting PhD student from EUI) will present on the following topic: For a Queer Materialist Critique of EU Law: About Law as an Ideological State Apparatus and Heterosexuality as a Mode of Production.

The encounters between law and queer theory are ever more frequent, multi-faceted, and decidedly ambivalent. In the field of EU law, a predominant doctrinal focus on the evolving legal protection of LGBT+ rights has not left much space for a more specifically critical and queer engagement with the system of EU law yet. At the same time, it is hard to ignore two simultaneous trends: on the one hand, an increasing and transversal interest in LGBT+/queer topics and, on the other, a growing engagement with materialism. Adopting a queer materialist approach to EU law, however, comes with its own challenges, reflecting the very challenges that arise from the encounters between Marxism and legal theory, Marxism and feminist/queer theory.

In this paper, I present the theoretical framework I am developing in my ongoing PhD project, provisionally titled "Too Queer to Be EU: A Queer Materialist Reader of the Law of the European Union". Starting from Louis Althusser's seminal work on social reproduction, and especially focusing on ideology and ideological state apparatuses; discussing the contributions of feminist authors including Teresa de Lauretis, Judith Butler, and Monique Wittig; and building on Federico Zappino's theory of heterosexuality as a mode of production, I outline a critical queer materialist approach to study EU law. In particular, I argue that EU law can be read as an ideological state apparatus contributing to the reproduction of heterosexual social relations: that is, the production and application of - as well as the resistance against - EU law make part of a broader social struggle whose aims and stakes relate to the reproduction or subversion of exploitative and oppressive heterosexual social relations.

This seminar is open to the public and will operate on a first-come, first-served basis.

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