Dr. Peter Drucker, a graduate of Yale (BA magna cum laude in history, 1979) and Columbia (PhD in political science, 1994) Universities, was IIRE Co-Director from 1993 to 2006. Since leaving the IIRE staff he has continued his close association with the institute as a Fellow. He teaches at the great majority of IIRE sessions, uses the institute as a base for his research, and continues to help shape its curriculum as an active member of its committee on education.
Teaching
Over the years Peter has taught at the IIRE in a wide range of fields, recently with two main focuses. He teaches at virtually every IIRE Youth School on US and European imperialism and the geopolitical role of emerging powers, with a particular concentration on upheavals in the Middle East. For this topic he draws on his own activist experience, notably his work as programme co-ordinator in New York for National Mobilization for Survival (1989-92).
At IIRE sessions for more advanced students he focuses on intersections between sexuality, class and national/ethnic/religious/'racial' identities, with a concentration on interactions between Europe and the Islamic world. This was his focus for example at the 2015 IIRE Women's Seminar, where he was the only male guest lecturer. It has also been one of his topics at the IIRE LGBTIQ Strategy Seminars, which he conceived and coordinated as IIRE Co-Director in 1998, 2000 and 2002 and co-organized in 2009 and 2014.
Research
Peter has emerged in the 21st century as a leading Marxist scholar in queer studies. His special contributions concern the roots of 'homonormativity' in neoliberalism, the impact of neoliberal globalization on same-sex sexualities in dependent countries, and links between queer and anti-capitalist resistance. He is also working on a series of studies on gender and sexual dimensions of Islamophobia, in both Europe and the Middle East. Finally, he continues his long-term work on the history of US and European socialism, connecting it to the left's record on feminist and LGBTIQ issues.
Publications
2015 'Gay normality and queer transformation' (in Zapruder World: International Journal for the History of Social Conflict, vol. 2) http://zapruderworld.org/content/peter-drucker-gay-normality-and-queer-transformation
2015 Warped: Gay Normality and Queer Anti-Capitalism (Leiden/Chicago: Brill/Historical Materialism) (see http://www.brill.com/products/book/warped ; available online from the IIRE:http://www.iire.org/component/jshopping/product/view/2/67.html)
'[I]n engaging prose, with insightful readings of theorists and activists across many movements and continents, [Warped] attempts a new synthesis ... one of the most ambitious new books ... about the [LGBTQ] movement.' - Urvashi Vaid
2014 'Conceptions of sexual freedom in Marcuse, Foucault and Rubin' (in Journal of the International Network of Sexual Ethics and Politics (INSEP) vol. 2, no. 2) http://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article35687
2007 'Marxism' (in Routledge International Encyclopedia of Men and Masculinities, London: Routledge)
2004 'Introducción: redefinición de las identidades sexuales' (in Peter Drucker ed., Arco Iris Diferentes -Spanish translation of Different Rainbows - Mexico City: Siglo XXI Editores)
2004 '"More freedom" or "more harmony"?: Henriette Roland Holst, Jacques Engels and the influence of class and gender on socialists' sexual attitudes' (in Jesse Battan et al. eds., Meetings & Alcoves, Dijon: Editions Universitaires) http://www.iisg.nl/womhist/drucker.pdf
2000 'Introduction: remapping sexualities' and 'Reinventing liberation' (in Peter Drucker ed., Different Rainbows, London: GMP) http://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article4879
'[A] unique, long-needed, and immensely valuable book ... brilliantly bound together by [its] editor. [Its] significance cannot be overstated.' - Martin Duberman
July/Aug. 1996 ""In the tropics there is no sin": sexuality and gay-lesbian movements in the Third World" (in New Left Review, no. 218)
1994 Max Shachtman and His Left: A Socialist's Odyssey through the 'American Century' (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press)
'Well written, well argued, and a major contribution to the history of Marxism and socialism in the U.S.' - Michael Löwy
Advocacy/public scholarship
'Same-sex marriage: an ambiguous victory' (New Politics, July 2015) http://newpol.org/content/same-sex-marriage-ambiguous-victory
'Ireland's victory for marriage equality' (Public Seminar, July 2015)http://www.publicseminar.org/2015/07/irelands-victory-for-marriage-equality-continued/#.Vemeec4Ua3c
Plenary speaker on 'Decolonizing our bodies', ILGA World Conference, Mexico City (October 2014)http://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article33426)
Lecturer (video at https://vimeo.com/55055160) and Member, Comité de parrainage, 'Marx au XXIe siècle', Université de Paris I (Sorbonne)
'Cosa insegnano i Paesi Bassi al movimento LGBIT' ('What the Netherlands has to teach the LGBTI movement' (Italy), interview by Mauro Muscio, Feb. 2014) http://www.communianet.org/gender/cosa-insegnano-i-paesi-bassi-al-movimento-lgbit-parte-i-dalla-conquista-dei-diritti
'Ir a uma sauna é uma liberdade limitada' ('Going to the bathhouse is a limited kind of freedom' (Portugal), interview by Bruno Horta, Time Out Lisboa, Feb. 2013) http://timeout.sapo.pt/artigo.aspx?id=2885
April/June 2007 'Entwicklungspolitik andersrum: Vom kampf der Lesben, Schwulen, Bisexuellen und Transgender um soziale Rechten' ('Alternative development policy: on the LGBT struggle for social rights' (Germany), in Hinterland, no. 4)
'"Buiten de orde": homo-emancipatie en islamophobie' ('Lesbian/gay emancipation and fear of Islam' (Netherlands), in Grenzeloos, no. 84, Nov./Dec. 2005) http://www.grenzeloos.org/content/'buiten-de-orde'
'For en kritisk dialog' ('For a critical dialogue [between queer theory and Marxism]' (Denmark), in Socialistisk Information, no. 197, May 2005)
'Rechten voor holebi's: een identiteit voor het neoliberaal Europa?' ('Lesbian/gay rights: an identity for neoliberal Europe?' (Netherlands), in De Internationale, no. 78, Fall 2001) http://www.grenzeloos.org/content/rechten-voor-holebis-een-identiteit-voor-het-neoliberaal-europa
'"Gay marriage?"' (editor and co-author of survey of European same-sex marriage legislation and debates in International Viewpoint, no. 308, Feb. 1999)