The Right to Sex named Blackwell's best book of 2021
Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory Amia Srinivasan’s book The Right to Sex has been awarded the Blackwell’s best book of the year. Her book was selected the ultimate winner from the three category winners for 2021 (Fiction, Non-Fiction and Children's) by a panel of Blackwell's booksellers from around the country.
The prize-winning book, already an instant Sunday Times bestseller, is a groundbreaking exploration of the politics of sex. Across six essays, Amia takes on sexual preference and injustice, pornography in the internet age, #MeToo and due process, professor-student sex, and sex work and the limits of carceral feminism. Searching, trenchant and extraordinarily original, The Right to Sex is a landmark examination of the politics and ethics of sex in this world, animated by the hope of a different one.
In addition to feminist theory, Amia’s research interests include epistemology, political philosophy and metaphilosophy. She is currently at work on her second book, on the practice of critical genealogy.
Blackwell’s Books of the Year 2021 were nominated and voted for by Blackwell’s booksellers.
Amia said: “It's a thrill to be named non-fiction book of the year by the wonderful booksellers of Blackwell's – the very people who make independent bookshops what they are: havens of thought and joy in a world which could do with more of both.”
The New York Times called The Right to Sex ‘quietly dazzling . . . [a] brilliant, rigorous book. She coaxes our imaginations out of the well-worn grooves of the existing order.’
Judith Butler, reviewing the book for The New Statesman, said: ‘Srinivasan demonstrates how the feminist philosopher can emancipate our basic ethical concepts from the stranglehold of patriarchy, capitalism, and state racism - and this is a remarkable and promising effort’.
Professor Samuel Moyn, who will be giving the Carlyle Lectures this year at Oxford, said: ‘Amia Srinivasan’s magnificent first book announces itself as a classic. Already one of our most superlative philosophers and stylish essayists, Srinivasan shows that concern for the plight of the most oppressed is never disconnected from general explorations of and movements for free lives for everyone, and the renovated social order our common future requires.'
