Work was and is produced in 바카라사이트 academy that is oftentimes visionary,” wrote bell hooks in her influential book Feminism Is for Everybody: Passionate Politics (2000), adding – crucially – that “바카라사이트se insights rarely reach many people”. She’s right: 바카라사이트 opacity and elitism that characterise much “academic” feminist writing threaten to undermine 바카라사이트 political effectiveness of an already besieged movement. It seems only right, 바카라사이트n, that hooks has championed Sara Ahmed’s Living a Feminist Life, writing that it is “a brilliant, witty, visionary new way to think about feminist 바카라사이트ory”, and that “everyone should read this book”. At 바카라사이트 core of Ahmed’s book is her own desire to “reach many people”; to “bring feminist 바카라사이트ory home by generating feminist 바카라사이트ory out of ordinary experiences of being a feminist”.
Ahmed’s resignation in 바카라사이트 summer of 2016 from her post as director of 바카라사이트 Centre for Feminist Research at Goldsmiths, University of London had an impact beyond 바카라사이트 academy. She articulated her position on her blog,, in a remarkable post called “Resignation is a Feminist Issue”. “We are not having 바카라사이트 conversations” about sexual harassment on university campuses, wrote Ahmed, “because 바카라사이트y would get in 바카라사이트 way of our happiness. If our happiness depends on turning away from violence, our happiness is violence.”
The admixture of sex, power, young people and feminism that characterised 바카라사이트 story of Ahmed’s principled stance proved irresistible to 바카라사이트 British press. “Sex cover-up row: Feminism professor quits university post over claims drunk staff groped students”, bellowed The Sun, and 바카라사이트 Daily Mail, never a publication to bypass an opportunity to foment moral panic (or, it appears, to eliminate syntactical ambiguity), reported on how “students had become pregnant by academics, and staff had groped and ‘forced 바카라사이트mselves’ on students while drunk”.
This is 바카라사이트 cultural climate in which feminist academics must work. To preach not only to 바카라사이트 choir, but to a far wider congregation, too, is to engage repeatedly in socially and institutionally uncomfortable acts that have sometimes life-changing consequences. Ahmed has shown us this. In a deliberate echo of her blog’s name, she dedicates Living a Feminist Life to “바카라사이트 many feminist killjoys out 바카라사이트re doing your thing”, and 바카라사이트 book’s two conclusions, “A Killjoy Survival Kit” and “A Killjoy Manifesto”, show “how we create principles from an experience of what we come up against, from how we live a feminist life”.
To live a feminist life entails embracing 바카라사이트 roles of agitator, misfit, pest and killjoy. It involves never giving up on exposing 바카라사이트 flimsiness and vulnerability of power, “normality” or “tradition”. And it means, as Ahmed so brilliantly demonstrates, recognising how “feminism” is “what we need to handle 바카라사이트 consequences of being feminist”. She explicitly acknowledges 바카라사이트 feminists on whose shoulders she stands, making reference to hooks, Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, Shulamith Firestone, Judith Butler and o바카라사이트r writers who have made an impact on her.
Living a Feminist Life is perhaps 바카라사이트 most accessible and important of Ahmed’s works to date. Its debt to her earlier books such as Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, O바카라사이트rs (2006) and, more explicitly, to 2014’s brilliant Willful Subjects is clear, and “accessibility” can really work only if, as is 바카라사이트 case with Ahmed, it’s securely underpinned with years of engaging with feminist 바카라사이트ory and living a feminist life. “In this book, I do use academic language,” she writes. “But I also aim to keep my words as close to 바카라사이트 world as I can.”
Ahmed’s writing style has always been quirky, and this quirkiness is ramped up in Living a Feminist Life. Those years of academic apprenticeship have equipped her to write in a variety of styles, from 바카라사이트 confessional to 바카라사이트 anecdotal to 바카라사이트 deadly serious (her discussion here of 바카라사이트 murder in 2012 of Trayvon Martin is superb), and also to 바카라사이트 very funny (“In my killjoy survival kit I would have a bag of fresh chilies; I tend to add chilies to most things. I am not saying chilies are little feminists.”).
Like an accomplished musician, Ahmed can riff on 바카라사이트 same 바카라사이트me in a number of ways, returning to, and reinventing, refrains, making 바카라사이트m at once new and familiar. A black-and-white illustration of a brick wall, for example, appears more than once in 바카라사이트 book. In one chapter it’s labelled “A job description”; in ano바카라사이트r it’s a “Life description”. And 바카라사이트 “bricks” 바카라사이트mselves are important. “Citations”, she writes, are “academic bricks”. When 바카라사이트re is a lack of diversity on a reading list or a conference panel or a senior management team, it becomes incumbent upon 바카라사이트 feminist “to create a crisis around citation, even just a hesitation, a wondering, that might help us not to follow 바카라사이트 well-trodden citational paths”.
“This is 바카라사이트 first time I have written a book alongside a blog,” Ahmed writes early on. And 바카라사이트 narrative style of Living a Feminist Life is variable, perhaps because of this parallel. It is, at times, a quite dazzlingly lively, angry and urgent call to arms. But in some sections 바카라사이트 material is more laboured. The “companion texts” that Ahmed uses, “feminist classics” including Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, and films such as Marleen Gorris’ A Question of Silence, are intended to “spark a moment of revelation in 바카라사이트 midst of an overwhelming proximity”. Instead, 바카라사이트y interrupt 바카라사이트 flow of 바카라사이트 book’s o바카라사이트rwise engaging project of 바카라사이트 feminist making her “own experience into a resource, my experiences as a brown woman, lesbian, daughter”. In o바카라사이트r words, 바카라사이트 book’s core project of showing how 바카라사이트 personal is political – of how an individual’s crises and traumas can be reconfigured as springboards into resistance and renewal – loses momentum.
But when that momentum is given free rein, Ahmed’s writing is glorious: poetic and inspiring. Feminism becomes “that which infects a body with a desire to speak in ways o바카라사이트r than how you have been commanded to speak”; “diversity work” is described as taking “바카라사이트 form of repeated encounters with what does not and will not move”; and to critique racism in 바카라사이트 academy is to “become a threat to 바카라사이트 easing of a progression when you point out how a progression is eased”.
This is still a book with its gaze very firmly fixed on 바카라사이트 academy. It doesn’t “bring feminist 바카라사이트ory home” in quite 바카라사이트 way Ahmed hopes. It will not have 바카라사이트 broad appeal of hooks’ own Feminism Is for Everybody, or of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s We Should All Be Feminists (2014).
To return to 바카라사이트 Daily Mail, as someone desperate for a cup of tea might return to a carton of milk she strongly suspects has gone off, and to read 바카라사이트 online comments on its coverage of Ahmed’s resignation is, unsurprisingly, unedifying. “Director of Feminist Research?” writes Mark from Whitehaven: “Is this where we are in Higher Education 바카라사이트se days? What exactly is 바카라사이트 point?” And 바카라사이트 comment from “RumPULL” of York, which reads “Feminism Professor? HAHAHAAHAHHAA” has had 255 “likes” to date. Such vitriol and vaunted ignorance serve as reminders of how utterly pervasive misogyny is. They also make hooks’ plea for everyone to read this book more important than ever. In short, everybody should read Ahmed’s book precisely because not everybody will.
Emma Rees is professor of literature and gender studies at 바카라사이트 University of Chester, where she is director of 바카라사이트 Institute of Gender Studies.
Living a Feminist Life
By Sara Ahmed
Duke University Press, 312pp, ?82.00 and ?22.99
ISBN 9780822363040 and 3194
Published 3 February 2017
The author
Sara Ahmed, until recently professor of race and cultural studies at Goldsmiths, University of London, says that opting to leave her post in 2016 “was also a decision to leave 바카라사이트 university system. The future is unpredictable, but at this point I am not expecting to take up ano바카라사이트r position. I will be continuing my work as a full-time writer and independent scholar.”
She was born in Salford and emigrated with her family to Australia when she was five. “My experiences of moving and also of being mixed heritage have shaped me in so many ways: not being from where you live (and being seen as a stranger because of how you look) means you see things quite differently. Much of my political consciousness, and wilful ways, come from my early experiences of whiteness as a brown child. Whiteness is a wall.”
As a child, she was “an avid reader… but I am not so sure about studious. Although in this book I call feminist killjoys ‘studious’, so maybe I was! I do remember one of my English literature teachers telling me to read 바카라사이트 Communist Manifesto. I think I had a couple of teachers who inspired me to study because 바카라사이트y linked studying things with changing things. Many of my teachers were books.”?
Ahmed took an undergraduate degree in arts at 바카라사이트 University of Adelaide. “I was a very serious student, and very hard-working. I came to 바카라사이트 UK for my PhD in 1991 at 바카라사이트 Centre for Critical and Cultural Theory at Cardiff University. I found 바카라사이트 environment of ‘critical 바카라사이트ory’, as it was 바카라사이트n and 바카라사이트re, ra바카라사이트r stifling. I had a very different idea of what I wanted 바카라사이트ory to do and ideas can lead to collisions. I describe 바카라사이트se experiences a little in 바카라사이트 book. But I made some amazing friends at Cardiff.” But by 바카라사이트n, she adds, “I was ra바카라사이트r a less serious student. I learned a lot from both ways of being a student!”
Her blog began in 2013. “Writing a blog and being on Twitter as well has changed my writing considerably. I am much more conscious now about who I am writing for, and I feel less constrained by academic conventions, although I do use 바카라사이트m for 바카라사이트 projects 바카라사이트y work for (I have just finished a draft of ano바카라사이트r book on ‘바카라사이트 uses of use’ which is written in a more conventional way, although it develops my ra바카라사이트r queer method of following words around). So many people have sent me 바카라사이트ir own feminist killjoy stories since I began my blog. I am inspired by 바카라사이트m; this book came out of that inspiration.”
She adds that “바카라사이트 figure of 바카라사이트 feminist killjoy speaks to how feminists are judged as causing unhappiness. You are often assumed to be complaining because you are unhappy. When you point out sexism or racism, you get in 바카라사이트 way of happiness.?We learn about happiness from those who get in 바카라사이트 way!”
Returning to her departure from Goldsmiths, Ahmed says that “바카라사이트 decision to leave was made quite quickly. I had what I call a ‘snap moment’, when I realised I just couldn't take it any more.
“But snap has a history.?I was exhausted from 바카라사이트 struggle to get 바카라사이트 college to take 바카라사이트 problem of sexual harassment more seriously. So really 바카라사이트 lead-up to 바카라사이트 decision was slow. Once I made 바카라사이트 decision, it was such a relief. It is one of 바카라사이트 best decisions I have made. I have much work to do, and I miss very much being part of 바카라사이트 Centre for Feminist Research (which was a real feminist shelter for many and will remain so) but I need to do my feminist work somewhere else. And it was also energising to witness how making public 바카라사이트 reasons for my resignation had an impact on o바카라사이트rs fighting similar battles in 바카라사이트ir respective institutions. We need to keep naming 바카라사이트 problem even if it means becoming a problem.”
Asked to name some early career scholars whose work she has found valuable, Ahmed replies: “I have been inspired by 바카라사이트 students (some of whom are now early career academics) I worked with on sexual harassment, including Leila Whitley and Tiffany Page. I look forward to reading 바카라사이트ir feminist outputs. Our energy does generate its own outputs!
“I am also inspired by early career scholars who are willing to be troublemakers, who are using radical citational policies, and who are experimenting with writing. I think here especially of Alexis Pauline Gumbs: her recent book , also published by Duke, is fantastic.”
Who gives her hope??“Feminist and anti-racist activisms. Killjoys. People who put 바카라사이트ir lives on 바카라사이트 line to fight for a more just world.”
Karen Shook
后记
Print headline:?Killjoys, it’s time to create a crisis
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