International Visitors Programme
On 18 and 19 June 2024, Sara Ahmed visited Rotterdam with the intention of supporting feminist killjoy collectives in Rotterdam and the Netherlands, inside and outside academia, that are committed to transformation within and against institutions. Ahmed’s work has not only had a profound influence on academic fields such as phenomenology and affect theory, but is also a point of reference for anyone seeking to understand and transform how power is secured and challenged in everyday worlds and institutional cultures.
Her visit was the occasion for an intimate workshop with around 30 feminist organisers in the Leeszaal Rotterdam West on the afternoon of Tuesday 18 June. 'Feel everything (including game joy)', is the last game joy survival tip from The Feminist Killjoy Handbook. The workshop began with Ahmed reading from her own work. Workshop participants were divided into five tables and discussed questions around knowledge and knowledge-making; solidarity across differences; killjoy survival kits; resistance and institutional transformation; and testimony. They then presented these topics to Ahmed and the whole group, with Ahmed responding at each table.
On 19 June, thecworkshop participants and organisers joined Ahmed for a sunny dinner before her sold-out and live-streamed public lecture in the auditorium of the Nieuwe Instituut, moderated by Clarice Gargard (Lilith Magazine) with an introductory statement by Nena Ackerl and Melisa Ersoy. Ahmed’s (recorded) lecture, Changing Institutions: Complaint, Common Sense and Other Lessons in Legacy, brought together her theoretical grounding in critical phenomenology with her most recent project on the politics of common sense, and her work on complaint and diversity work.
Over the course of two days, Ahmed’s visit strengthened links between feminist organisers and the sharing of the knowledge developed within such networks with a wider audience.
Sara Ahmed is a feminist writer and independent researcher. She works at the intersection of feminism, queer studies and race studies. Her research focuses on how bodies and worlds are shaped and how power is secured and contested in everyday life and institutional cultures.
This visit was the result of a collaboration between the Nieuwe Instituut and the Human Conditions Department of the Erasmus School of Philosophy (ESPhil) in Rotterdam.