Heather Berg writes about sex, work, and social struggle. Her book Porn Work (UNC Press, 2021) takes readers behind the scenes to explore what porn performers think of their work and how they intervene to hack it. It tells a story of crafty workers, faltering managers, and shifting solidarities. It won the CLR James best book prize from the Working Class Studies Association. Her second project, "Lumpen Theory: Notes from the Sex Worker Left," engages anti-capitalist sex workers' theorizing on straight work, unpaid sex, and state violence and explores their experiments with alternatives.
Professor Berg's research and teaching interests include sexuality studies, Marxist feminist and queer thought, and resistance studies. Her research appears in Signs, Feminist Studies, and South Atlantic Quarterly, among others, and has been featured in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, National Public Radio, and El País. At Washington University, she teaches courses on Sexuality and the State, Sex and Money, Everyday Unruliness, Research Methods, and Feminist Theory.
