Disruptive Subjects

Operaismo and Radical Feminism in Italy and the United States

Abstract

This _Article examines the role of disruption in two pivotal instances of subject formation in the late 1960s and 1970s Atlantic World: Operaismo (Workerism) and radical feminism in Italy and the United States. To do so, it traces the history of the self-creation of workers and women as political subjects. It underscores how this becoming-subject emerged, both conceptually and tactically, through the disruption of their assigned role, place, and function within society. It describes the autonomous, unruly, and unexpected subjectivities that emerged from this disavowal and the new forms of politics, praxis, history, being-with, and against that women and workers created. The conclusion discusses the fortunes of disruptive politics and subjectivity since the 1970s and what these historical struggles can say to the liberation struggles of our present.