No is Not a Lonely Utterance: Sara Ahmed in conversation with Janine Francois
Description
Join us when we welcome Sara Ahmed to celebrate the paperback edition of NO IS NOT A LONELY UTTERANCE with Janine Francois
To complain is an intimate, dangerous act. Whether it’s speaking up about racism in the workplace or taking a stand against sexual harassment at university, the act of complaining to an institution can leave you isolated and undermined, all while the original injustice remains unresolved. Time and time again, we see these unanswered complaints compound to disastrous effect.
In NO IS NOT A LONELY UTTERANCE, Sara Ahmed dissects the anatomy of a complaint, revealing how institutions create hostile environments that stigmatize complainers, and charts a way we can listen to grievances with ‘feminist ears’: going beyond mere validation and seeking instead to address the root causes of injustice and inequality.
Weaving together testimonies from various walks of life, Ahmed shows us what we learn about the ways institutions exercise their power when complaints are raised, and indeed what we learn about our capacity to collectivize and create social bonds through complaint. In doing so, she inspires us to create better environments for our life’s work.
Lineup
Sara Ahmed
Sara Ahmed is an independent scholar concerned with how power is experienced and challenged in everyday life and institutional cultures. She has a book Common Sense and Its Others forthcoming with Duke University Press. 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.
Janine Francois
Dr. Janine Francois is a Black British feminist scholar, whose work explores climate justice through ancestral knowledge, anti-colonial thought and feminist ethics of care. Her interdisciplinary practice spans writing, research, curation and public engagement across academic, cultural and community contexts. Janine is an Associate Professor and Director of Climate Justice at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, and Co-Curator of the BSc Architectural & Interdisciplinary Studies Summer Show.
Tickets for good, not greed Humanitix dedicates 100% of profits from booking fees to charity
Get Tickets
Get Tickets
More events from this host
