Video: Leopoldina Fortunati on The Arcana of Reproduction

Author Leopoldina Fortunati sat down with Sara R. Farris to discuss the new English edition of her classic The Arcana of Reproduction – now available from Verso Books.

This interview was recorded at the Verso office in London during the Historical Materialism Conference, 2025.

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The Arcana of Reproduction is a foundational text and essential contribution to today’s discussions of social reproduction and the history of Italian feminism. Fortunati’s work provides some of the earliest theorizations of ‘immaterial,’ ‘affective,’ and ‘caring’ labor, and of the role of technology in reproduction, articulated decades before their popular reception in English academic literature. Reading this work some 50 years after its original publication gives us the tools to analyze the contemporary state of capitalist development and of women’s lives today. The text remains prefigurative and essential in our era of digital labor.