This course proceeds from Lise Vogel's assertion that “building a theory of women’s liberation around the category of ‘women’ … is a mistake.” If Marx's critique of political economy is a critique of economic categories, then the categories of the political economy of gender should be subjected to the same critique. We will develop this approach through initial readings of Marx's 1861–1863 Manuscripts and contemporary critical interpretations of Marx. Rather than taking categories like "women," "family," "home," and "housework" as given, we will treat them as historically specific social forms, drawing on the critique of political economy to investigate the relationship between household production and the reproduction of capitalist society. A study of the 1970s Domestic Labor Debates will be the primary focus of our readings, providing the context for our evaluations of current Marxist-feminist political economy, including what has come to be called "Social Reproduction Theory". These investigations will serve as the framework for students’ own application of political-economic theoretical considerations to a present-day social problem or policy question.