Sara Ahmed: Hope Street Writer in Residence 2026 Public Lecture

The Centre for New and International Writing at the University of Liverpool welcomes you to:
Hope Street Writer in Residence 2026 Public Lecture
Sara Ahmed
Out of the Shadows: Common Sense and Its OthersThursday 12 November 2026, 6-7.30pm, University of Liverpool (Paul Brett Lecture Theatre, Yoko Ono Lennon Centre, Oxford St, L7 3NY)In her political history of common sense, Sophia Rosenfeld notes that 'common sense generally only comes out of the shadows and draws attention to itself at moments of perceived crisis'. To become 'the other' of common sense is to be perceived as the cause of a crisis. Common sense has been defined against many others, from idealists to sceptics and the overly enthusiastic. Those who threaten common sense by questioning certainties of sex and race are now called 'woke'. And so, when common sense comes out of the shadows, it tends to bring its others with it.Can we retell the story of common sense from the point of view of its others? In this lecture, Sara Ahmed - one of our most vital political thinkers and the 2026 Hope Street Writer in Residence at the University of Liverpool - considers journeys undertaken in the mid-twentieth century by two scholars known for their contributions to rethinking common sense: the analytical philosopher G. E. Moore and the sociologist Harold Garfinkel. Ahmed will show how others appear in the shadows of their work, giving us another angle on common sense itself.In collaboration with Tate Liverpool.Sara Ahmed is an independent feminist scholar. Her work is concerned with how power is experienced and challenged in everyday life and institutional cultures. Her new book Common Sense and Its Others is 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. Previous books include Complaint! (2021), What's The Use? On the Uses of Use (2019), Living a Feminist Life(2017), Willful Subjects (2014), On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life (2012), The Promise of Happiness (2010) and Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others (2006), 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 @feministkilljoyatworkAll welcome!