Category Archives: Uncategorized

A lifework: the entire or principal activity over a person’s lifetime or career. To be a feminist is to make feminism your lifework. I am deeply indebted to bell hooks for teaching me this – and so much else, besides. … Continue reading →

I am often asked how my arguments about complaint activism relate to the projects of transformative and restorative justice as well as abolitionist feminism. In an answer to one such question, I spoke of my caution in using some of … Continue reading →

In today’s lecture,  I will reflect back on my project on complaint, and in particular, my method of listening to complaint, listening as learning about violence. I was inspired to do this research after taking part in a series of … Continue reading →

You might have a fight on your hands.* You might have to fight for room, room to be, room to do, room to do your work without being questioned or being put under surveillance.  You might have to fight to … Continue reading →

I have been listening to stories of complaint. I have been collecting complaints.  To collect can mean to go to a place and bring somebody back or to bring things together from different times or places. To bring somebody back, … Continue reading →

Content Warning: The following post includes a discussion of transphobia and transmisogyny. How has gender become a map of a moment? Why do so many movements present themselves as against gender? In a recent article, Judith Butler shows how the … Continue reading →

Yesterday we launched Complaint!  I want to express my deep appreciation for all you who are doing the work of complaint, chipping away at the walls of the institution, knocking on the doors, causing disturbance; unburying, rebuilding. My apologies for … Continue reading →

Complaint! is out! You can now purchase the book direct from Duke University Press as well as from Combined Academic Publishers if you are in the UK/Europe. Until October 15, you can receive a 50 percent discount using the code … Continue reading →

Dear Lauren, I knew we were going to lose you. You told us in so many words. You have such a way with words that I had to work hard not to be distracted by their beauty from the devastation … Continue reading →

In the last months, I have been presenting my research on complaint in the form of three different (but connected) lectures: “Knocking on the Door: Complaints and Other Stories about Institutions,”Complaint, Diversity and Other Hostile Environments” (also here and here) and … Continue reading →