The Feminist Killjoy Handbook! Sara Ahmed in conversation with Jonathan Keane

Join us to share some killjoy solidarity and to celebrate the paperback release of The Feminist Killjoy Handbook! Author Sara Ahmed will be in conversation with her friend and comrade in queer world making Jonathan Keane. They will reflect together on why the figure of the feminist killjoy has so much queer potential. 

We have had the joyful privilege of celebrating a number of book launches with Sara over the years and we can't wait to celebrate with Jonathan and her again! So come along to Gay's the Word bookshop on March 7th, paperback publication day…and the eve of International Women’s Day. Tickets are £2 and there will be £2 discount off the book on the night! 

The Feminist Killjoy Handbook!

We have to keep saying it because they keep doing it.

Do colleagues roll their eyes in a meeting when you use words like sexism or racism? Do you refuse to laugh at jokes that aren't funny? Have you been called divisive for pointing out a division? Then you are a feminist killjoy, and this handbook is for you.

The term killjoy has been used to dismiss feminism by claiming that it causes misery. But by naming ourselves feminist killjoys, we recover a feminist history, turning it into a source of strength as well as an inspiration.

Drawing on her own stories and those of others, especially Black and brown feminists and queer thinkers, Sara Ahmed combines depth of thought with honesty and intimacy. The Feminist Killjoy Handbook unpicks the lies our culture tells us and provides a form of solidarity and companionship that can be returned to over a lifetime.

'Not only a dazzling analysis of the workings of sexism, but a balm for the soul. It will teach you how to survive and how to transform the world.' - Hannah Dawson

'Odd and exciting to let out a shout as one reads a book of theory, theory written for and about the ordinary outrages that demand a feminist response. This book releases a sound that emerges from the full diaphragm, a life force held in check for too long. Ahmed moves from scene to scene with clarity, rage, and joy, building through each refrain to mark the brutal violence of everyday encounters and to show us what a life-affirming response can be. Ahmed thinks in the middle of rage, never letting go of the possibility of joyful resistance, writing, turning over what she just wrote, showing how "obstinacy" is one form for the desire to survive. And yet, throughout, the humility of this brilliant feminist thinker shines through. This book is a great gift, enormously important for overcoming this vicious trans/feminist divide, showing how anti-racism and the struggle for disability rights is central to feminist and queer thinking and politics. - Judith Butler

‘Full of memorable zingers ... Ahmed has a rare power for naming what many of us know to be true: her articulation holds the power of clarity.’ - Lucy McKeon, Vanity Fair

Sara Ahmed and Jonathan Keane met in 1991 as students at The Centre for Critical and Cultural Theory, Cardiff University. Sara is now an independent queer feminist scholar of colour. The Feminist Killjoy Handbook (Allen Unwin) is her first trade book. Previous books include Complaint! (2021), Living a Feminist Life (2017) and Queer Phenomenology: Objects, Orientations, Others (2006). She is currently writing A Complainer’s Handbook: A Guide to Building Less Hostile Institutions. 

Jonathan is a writer, curator, actor and sometimes bookseller who has worked in and with queer culture for the past 30 years notably at the BFI, the National Portrait Gallery, the Barbican and stints behind the till at Gays the Word. He has recently completed his PhD in Creative Writing, Traction: a queer cultural memoir, charting his life and these our times.