Ahmed has been described as a prolific writer: reviewing Ahmed's work, gender studies scholar
Margrit Shildrick commented, "Few academic writers working in the UK context today can match Sara Ahmed in her prolific output, and fewer still can maintain the consistently high level of her theoretical explorations." Ahmed has written eleven single-authored books.
Books Differences that Matter: Feminist Theory and Postmodernism Published in 1998 by
Cambridge University Press. Ahmed's main focus in this book revolves around the question "is or should feminism be modern or postmodern?" She reflects on what she feels postmodernism is doing to the world in different contexts.
Strange Encounters: Embodied Others in Post-Coloniality Published in 2000 by
Routledge. ====
The Cultural Politics of Emotion==== Published in 2004 (with a second edition in 2014) by
Edinburgh University Press. Ahmed discusses a contact zone, where objects and bodies that could create different affects are joined. Ahmed further argues that our emotions are formed through our contact with images and objects. .
Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others Published in 2006 by
Duke University Press. Ahmed often focuses on the subject of orientation and being orientated in space, especially in relationship to sexual orientation. In her book
Queer Phenomenology: Orientation, Objects, Others, Ahmed states that orientation refers to the objects and others that we turn to face as well as the space that we inhabit, and how it is that we inhabit that space. Ahmed brings together queer phenomenology as a way of conveying that orientation is situated in the lived experience.
The Promise of Happiness Published in 2010 by
Duke University Press. This work was awarded the FWSA book prize in 2011 for "ingenuity and scholarship in the fields of feminism, gender or women’s studies". In this book, Ahmed focuses on what it means to be worthy of happiness and how specific acts of deviation work with particular identities to cause unhappiness. She also focuses on how happiness is narrated and the idea of
utilitarianism.
On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life Published in 2012 by
Duke University Press. In
On Being Included, Ahmed "offers an account of the diversity world". She explores institutional racism and whiteness, and the difficulties diversity workers face in trying to overcome them in their institutions.
Willful Subjects Published by
Duke University Press in 2014. Ahmed focuses on the idea of willfulness as resistance. She adds that willfulness involves persistence in having been brought down. Ahmed's goal throughout this book was to "spill the container" as willfulness provides a container for perversion.
Living a Feminist Life Published in 2017 by
Duke University Press. Ahmed's blog, "feministkilljoys", was written at the same time as "Living a Feminist Life" (2017). As the title suggests, Ahmed explores feminist theory, and what it means on our everyday lives. One way this manifests is in diversity work, something to which she dedicated a third of the book. She also spends much of the book exploring the feminist killjoy, the feminist in action who takes up the call in their everyday life. In 2020, Duke University Press confirmed that
Living a Feminist Life was their best-selling book of the previous decade.
''What's the Use? On the Uses of Use'' Published in 2019 by
Duke University Press. Ahmed gives the historical idea on the association of use with life and strength in the 19th century and how utilitarianism helped shape individuals through useful ends. She also explores how use comes with restricted spaces. Ahmed then explores the ideas for queer use.
Complaint! Published in 2021 by
Duke University Press. According to the publisher: "examines what we can learn about power from those who complain about abuses of power. Drawing on oral and written testimonies from academics and students who have made complaints about harassment, bullying, and unequal working conditions at universities, Ahmed explores the gap between what is supposed to happen when complaints are made and what actually happens."
The Feminist Killjoy Handbook Published in 2023 by
Seal Press. Building on the figure of the feminist killjoy, Sara Ahmed presents an analysis of literature, film, and distinguished feminist works while weaving alongside it her lived experience as a queer feminist scholar-activist of colour. She highlights how killing joy is a world-making project, chronicling moves from asking questions to the power of the eye roll. Feminist scholar
Judith Butler has reviewed Ahmed’s book in their article titled The Snap for the monthly magazine
The Nation in 2024.
Co-edited books •
Uprootings/Regroundings: Questions of Home and Migration, Published by in 2013 by Oxford •
Thinking Through the Skin, Published in 2001 by Routledge •
Transformations: Thinking Through Feminism, Published in 2000 by Routledge
Edited and co-edited journals •
Sexism, Published in 2015 by New Formations •
Happiness, Published in 2008 by New Formations == References ==