In her political history of common sense, Sophia Rosenfeld notes that ‘common sense generally only comes out of the shadows and draws attention to itself at moments of perceived crisis’. To become ‘the other’ of common sense is to be perceived as the cause of a crisis. Common sense has been defined against many others, from idealists to sceptics and the overly enthusiastic. Those who threaten common sense by questioning certainties of sex and race are now called ‘woke’. And so, when common sense comes out of the shadows, it tends to bring its others with it.

Can we retell the story of common sense from the point of view of its others? In this lecture, Sara Ahmed – one of our most vital political thinkers and the 2026 Hope Street Writer in Residence at the University of Liverpool – considers journeys undertaken in the mid-twentieth century by two scholars known for their contributions to rethinking common sense: the analytical philosopher G. E. Moore and the sociologist Harold Garfinkel. Ahmed will show how others appear in the shadows of their work, giving us another angle on common sense itself.

Tickets available here.