Sara Ahmed

Sara Ahmed is an author and researcher. She was born on August 30, 1969, in Salford, England. When she was young, in the early 1970's, she moved to Adelaide, Australia with her family. Ahmed has had an exceptional education. She got her first degree at the Adelaide University, where she lived in Australia. She then went to Cardiff University in Wales to do doctoral research. 

For a while, Ahmed worked as a professor of Race and Cultural studies at Goldsmiths, University of London. However, at the end of 2016 she resigned from her position in protest of a sexual harassment issue that the school had been failing to address. In 2017, Ahmed received the Kessler award from CLAGS (Center for LGBTQ Studies) for her contribution to the field. When accepting this award, she gave a lecture titled "Queer Use." Now she works independently writing and doing research. 

Ahmed has written ten books, including Willful Subjects (2014), Living a Feminist Life (2017), and more recently Complaint! (2021). Her books discuss complex ideas of feminism theory, racism, and queer studies. She often talks about these topics as they occur in everyday life. For example, her book Living a Feminist Life, Ahmed talks about feminism as it shows itself through ordinary experiences. In the books Ahmed connects the ides of sexism and racism to how they can prevent people from being comfortable in the world. Ahmed also has a blog called Feministkilljoys where she posts more of her ideas.

Sara Ahmed is a notable rhetor due to her ideas of standing up for what you believe in. Ahmed took the term "killjoy" and created the idea of a "feminist killjoy," or someone who faces uncomfortable truths and wants to change things in the world. Since some of her writing focuses on feminism and racism that occurs in everyday life, Ahmed connects her ideas to normal people who might not have academic experience in these topics. In this way, Ahmed has helped people to speak on topics that can often go ignored. With her words she encourages others to speak up about these topics, which makes her very important as a modern-day rhetorician.