"The Hopefulness of Complaint": Sara Ahmed in Conversation with Adrija Dey

"The Hopefulness of Complaint": Sara Ahmed in Conversation with Adrija Dey

DATE: Friday 06-02-2026
TIME: 6.00-7.30 PM
LOCATION: University of Westminster, Little Titchfield Street G.03 Lecture Theatre

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The event will be followed by a book signing, and books will be available to purchase.

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In this lecture, Sara will reflect back on her experience of writing No is Not a Lonely Utterance: The Art and Activism of Complaining. Although this book was written at a time of escalating and devastating violence, it is, perhaps curiously, a hopeful book. She will share some thoughts on hopefulness and how it came into the work from the act of bringing so many complaints, made at different times and in different places, together.

Sara Ahmed is an independent queer feminist scholar of colour. Her work is concerned with how power is experienced and challenged in everyday life and institutional cultures. Her most recent books are No is Not a Lonely Utterance: The Art and Activism of Complaining (2025) and The Feminist Killjoy Handbook (2023) both published by Allen Lane. Previous books include Complaint! (2021), What's The Use? On the Uses of Use (2019), Living a Feminist Life (2017), Willful Subjects (201$), On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life (2012), The Promise of Happiness (2010) and Queer Phenomenology: Orientations Objects, Others all published by Duke University Press. She blogs at feministkilljoys.com and has a newsletter https://feministkilljoys.substack.com/. You can also find her on bluesky @saranahmed.bsky.social and instagram @feministkilljoyatwork

Adrija Dey is a Reader at the School of Social Science at the University of Westminster. She is the Principal Investigator on the UKRI-funded research project ‘FemIDEAS: Decolonising Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV) in Higher Education (HE)’. She is the author of Nirbhaya: New Media and Digital Gender Activism. She has been a vocal campaigner against sexual misconduct in HE and currently serves as the Director of International Knowledge Exchange at The 1752 group. She is also the founder of the North-South Feminist Dialogue (FemDialogue) platform that aims to foster transnational conversations, collaboration and solidarity among activists and academics working on SGBV in HE in the Global North and Global South.