# Sara Ahmed [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sara_Ahmed) (1969– ) ## Description British-Australian independent scholar working in feminist and queer phenomenology, affect studies, and institutional critique; resigned her professorship at Goldsmiths, University of London in 2016 in protest of the institution's handling of sexual harassment complaints, and has since written extensively on complaint as both method and political practice. ## Key Tags #feminist #queer-theory #philosophy #theorist ## Essential Works - [Queer Phenomenology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sara_Ahmed) (2006) - orientations, bodies, and space theorized through a queer phenomenological lens - [The Promise of Happiness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Promise_of_Happiness) (2010) - critique of happiness as a normative, disciplining social demand - [Complaint!](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sara_Ahmed) (2021) - institutional ethnography of complaint within universities, grounded in her own resignation from Goldsmiths ## Details Trained in cultural studies (PhD, Cardiff University); her "affect aliens" concept in *The Promise of Happiness* names those whose refusal of normative happiness scripts — the feminist killjoy, the unhappy queer, the melancholic migrant — reveals how happiness functions as a form of social discipline. *Complaint!* extends her institutional critique into a study of how universities absorb and neutralize harassment complaints, grounded directly in her own 2016 resignation from Goldsmiths. ### Concepts and Theories - [[Queer Theory]] - develops queer phenomenology as a major strand of contemporary queer theory ### Creative and Technical Practices %% none yet %% ### Collaborators %% none yet %% ### Institutional Affiliations and Associated Movements - Goldsmiths, University of London (former) - Professor of Race and Cultural Studies; resigned in 2016 over the university's handling of sexual harassment ## References ### Primary Sources Bibliography Ahmed, Sara. *Living a Feminist Life*. Duke University Press, 2017. Ahmed, Sara. *Complaint!*. Duke University Press, 2021. ### Secondary Sources Bibliography %% none yet %%