Feminist Killjoy

Thanks for reading!

"A complaint about an oppressive situation is used as evidence that a person is not really oppressed by a situation" (pp. 55) and other motivational insights and reminders by THE @saranahmed.bsky.social Annotating my copy with comments as a way to document, remember, complain, archiving. 💪

A queer phenomenology How I came to write a sequel 20 years later

I am offline next week. I didn't quite manage to write a newsletter this week. Here's something from last week. Or maybe it was this week. Time is as surreal as the times we are in. With killjoy solidarity to everyone surviving and fighting imperial war machines. FKJ xx substack.com/@feministkil...

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I had the absolute honour of having @saranahmed.bsky.social on Books Up Close! We talk about her new book, No is Not a Lonely Utterance. Listen wherever you get your shows! podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/e...

Thank you!

UK ban on Palestine Action unlawful, high court judges rule Protest group’s co-founder wins legal challenge against decision to proscribe it under anti-terrorism laws

UK ban on Palestine Action unlawful, high court judges rule


www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

this is how things seem to work in so many jobs/businesses

I recommend reading @saranahmed.bsky.social and @fromaleftwing.bsky.social if you need help coping with it in your realm

Portraits of three Native American Professor speakers and their book covers, promoting an online event

I'm thrilled to be presenting @arsavium.bsky.social & @pepepierce.bsky.social in conversation about their new books at @intellpublics.bsky.social with Audra Simpson!! Monday, Feb 23 at 6:30pm EST via Zoom webinar. @thegraduatecenter.bsky.social @dukepress.bsky.social register: bit.ly/gc-cuny-regi...

At Barnard College, dozens of faculty_circulated an open letter calling on the college to investigate & publicly address trustees’ past connections to Epstein,& urging the removal of Francine A. LeFrak’s name from campus buildings as well as her resignation from the board.
archive.ph/2026.02.11-0...

That means so much. Thank you!

«We need to name a problem in order to address it. But naming problems does not make them go away. And yet, naming matters. Complaining about problems does not make them go away, either. And yet complaining matters.»

"Ahmed’s @saranahmed.bsky.social conceptualising of knowledge, or more accurately, knowingness indicates that @ its core are 2 aspects: agency and authority Whilst the subaltern often has the agency to speak, or be recognised, they lack or are denied the authority to be seen or heard (Spivak 1988)"

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"When what you experience is part of the culture, you don’t identify it at the time you experience it…

Clarity can be jarring because to see it is not only to see what you didn't see before. It's to see yourself not seeing it. The longer you take to see it, the harder it is to see it."
- Sara Ahmed

The Hopefulness of Complaint A lecture delivered for the Transform Theory, Policy, and Practice: Decolonise Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) in Higher Education (HE) conference, Westminster University on February 6, 2026.*

open.substack.com/pub/feminist...

Cover of Sex Isn't Real with abstract black and white wavy lines

It’s publication day for Ideas on Fire author Beans Velocci! Their new book Sex Isn't Real: The Invention of an Incoherent Binary is out now from @dukepress.bsky.social. 🥳

dukeupress.edu/sex-isnt-real

#IoFAuthors

Free Ebooks: Abolish ICE, Abolish the Border In solidarity with all those standing up for our communities against the brutality of immigrant detention and ICE occupation, we're offering free ebooks of three crucial books about migrant justice an...

In solidarity with all those standing up for our communities against the brutality of immigrant detention and ICE occupation, we're offering free ebooks of three crucial books about migrant justice and border abolition.

Thanks for sharing 💜

An Empire of Closets A killjoy new year message

'In the UK, polishing is a national past-time. Shiny surfaces. Gloss. Gloss.' A killjoy new year message from @saranahmed.bsky.social feministkilljoys.substack.com/p/an-empire-...

An Empire of Closets A killjoy new year message

No cheer for no cheer. Keep planting your rebellion! open.substack.com/pub/feminist...

Congratulations! Can’t wait to read 💜

My book, The Future That Was: A History of Third World Feminism Against Authoritarianism, will be out March 17, 2026

It is now available for pre-order from @princetonupress.bsky.social and other online booksellers! cart.press.princeton.edu/checkout/car...

press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

Sara Ahmed (@feministkilljoys) Dear mainsteam British media, What a pity you blanked No is Not a Lonely Utterance! You might have found some useful tools to help explain not just how but why people protect serial abusers. ...

I could write so many more letters. substack.com/@feministkil...

No! An assembly of refusals portraying the radical power of “no” by the renowned scholar and author of The Feminist Killjoy Handbook, Sara Ahmed.To be heard as complaining is not to be heard, writes Sara ...

Not sure what VCU is but here’s a working link! feministpress.org/collections/...

Yes though US version out out till next April! go.bsky.app/redirect?u=h...

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A new book from one of the most transformative scholars I ever read? Hell yes.

"I share examples of complaints that are performed in meetings or on stage, made into songs, turned into postcards, posters and prayers, pasted on placards and marched onto the streets. To get our complaints out of institutions, we might have to be sneaky as well as leaky. How perfectly queer."