Lola Olufemi
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Lola Olufemi (; born 1996) is a British writer. She is an organiser with the London Feminist Library, and her writing has been published in many national and international magazines and newspapers. She is the author of ''Experiments in Imagining Otherwise'' and ''Feminism, Interrupted: Disrupting Power'', and the co-editor of ''A FLY Girl's Guide to University: Being a Woman of Colour at Cambridge and Other Institutions of Power and Elitism''.


Early life and education

Olufemi was born and grew up in London, their family home being in
Edmonton Edmonton is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Alberta. It is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Central Alberta ...
. She attended Enfield County School and studied English at
Selwyn College, Cambridge Selwyn College, Cambridge is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1882 by the Selwyn Memorial Committee in memory of George Selwyn (bishop of Lichfield), Georg ...
. She was the Women's Officer for
Cambridge University Students' Union Cambridge Students' Union, known as Cambridge SU, is the university-wide representative body for students at the University of Cambridge, England. Its predecessor union was known as Cambridge University Students' Union or CUSU until its dissolu ...
, and one of the facilitator's of FLY, the university's network for women and
non-binary Non-binary or genderqueer Gender identity, gender identities are those that are outside the male/female gender binary. Non-binary identities often fall under the transgender umbrella since non-binary people typically identify with a gende ...
people of colour. She completed her PhD in 2024, entitled ''But... The Luminous Tree: The Uses of the Imagination in Resistant Cultural Production''. Her research was funded by the TECHNE AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Studentship with the
University of Westminster The University of Westminster is a public university, public university based in London, United Kingdom. Founded in 1838 as the Royal Polytechnic Institution, it was the first Polytechnic (United Kingdom), polytechnic to open in London. The Po ...
and Stuart Hall Foundation.


Work


Writing and speaking

Olufemi has written and spoken on a range of topics including: art and culture; feminism, gender and sexism (including the Women's Strike and Time's Up movements); food equality;
climate justice Climate justice is a type of environmental justice that focuses on the unequal impacts of climate change on marginalized or otherwise vulnerable populations. Climate justice seeks to achieve an equitable distribution of both the burdens of clima ...
and race; race and racism, including archives of radical Black British activism; and higher education issues, including institutional justice and sexual harassment in universities, and decolonising practices in higher education (for which she was targeted with a "vicious and misleading" sexist and racist harassment by British right-wing press). Poet Jay Bernard interviewed Olufemi for Housmans Bookshop, and the pair discussed the " internationalist ethos of black feminist movements in the 70s and 80s", connecting feminist struggles such as protests against sexual violence with opposition to
settler colonialism Settler colonialism is a logic and structure of displacement by Settler, settlers, using colonial rule, over an environment for replacing it and its indigenous peoples with settlements and the society of the settlers. Settler colonialism is ...
. Olufemi with Che Gossett and Sarah Shin organised a month-long programme of talks and events under the title "Revolution is not a one-time event" in summer 2020. The launch event, hosted by Silver Press on 9 June 2020, took the form of a fundraiser for Black liberation. The fundraiser was hosted by Akwugo Emejulu and featured Che Gossett, Helena Rubinstein, Ru Kaur, Olufemi and Amrit Wilson in conversation.


Art

Olufemi is a member of "bare minimum", an interdisciplinary, anti-work arts collective. She has been commissioned by
Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery in London, housing the United Kingdom's national collection of international Modern art, modern and contemporary art (created from or after 1900). It forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Live ...
to run a feminist workshop as part of a Feminist Library event.


Influences

Olufemi cites several key
feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...
, trans-inclusive, and
Black feminist Black feminism is a branch of feminism that focuses on the African-American woman's experiences and recognizes the intersectionality of racism and sexism.  Black feminism philosophy centers on the idea that "Black women are inherently va ...
thinkers and collectives that have influenced her, in interviews and her writing, including:
Angela Davis Angela Yvonne Davis (born January 26, 1944) is an American Marxist and feminist political activist, philosopher, academic, and author. She is Distinguished Professor Emerita of Feminist Studies and History of Consciousness at the University of ...
,
Ann Oakley Ann Rosamund Oakley (née Titmuss; born 17 January 1944) is a British sociologist, feminist, and writer. She is professor and founder-director of the Social Science Research Unit at the UCL Institute of Education of the University College Lon ...
,
Assata Shakur Assata Olugbala Shakur (born JoAnne Deborah Byron; July 16, 1947), also known as Joanne Chesimard, is an American political activist who was a member of the Black Liberation Army (BLA). In 1977, she was convicted in the murder of state troope ...
,
Audre Lorde Audre Lorde ( ; born Audrey Geraldine Lorde; February 18, 1934 – November 17, 1992) was an American writer, professor, philosopher, Intersectional feminism, intersectional feminist, poet and civil rights activist. She was a self-described "Bl ...
, the
Brixton Black Women's Group The Brixton Black Women's Group (BWG) was an organisation for Black women in Brixton, London, England. One of the first Black women's groups in the UK, the BWG existed from 1973 to 1989. BWG members were also involved in Organisation of Women o ...
, the British Black Panthers,
Claudia Jones Claudia Vera Jones (; 21 February 1915 – 24 December 1964) was a Trinidad and Tobago-born journalist and activist. As a child, she migrated with her family to the United States, where she became a Communist political activist, feminist and bla ...
, the
Combahee River Collective The Combahee River Collective (CRC) ( ) was a Black feminist lesbian socialist organization active in Boston, Massachusetts, from 1974 to 1980. Marable, Manning; Leith Mullings (eds), ''Let Nobody Turn Us Around: Voices of Resistance, Reform, an ...
, Gail Lewis, the Grunwick Strikers,
Judith Butler Judith Pamela Butler (born February 24, 1956) is an American feminist philosopher and gender studies scholar whose work has influenced political philosophy, ethics, and the fields of third-wave feminism, queer theory, and literary theory. In ...
,
Kate Millett Katherine Murray Millett (September 14, 1934 – September 6, 2017) was an American feminist writer, educator, artist, and activist. She attended the University of Oxford and was the first American woman to be awarded a degree with first-clas ...
, Liz Obi, Olive Morris, OWAAD, Saidya Hartman, Stella Dadzie,
Shulamith Firestone Shulamith Bath Shmuel Ben Ari Firestone (born Feuerstein; January 7, 1945 – August 28, 2012) was a Canadian-American radical feminist writer and activist. She was a prominent figure in the early development of radical feminism and second-wave ...
,
Silvia Federici Silvia Federici (; born 1942) is an Italian-American scholar, teacher, and Marxist feminist activist based in New York. She is a professor emerita and teaching fellow at Hofstra University in New York State, where she was a social science prof ...
,
Selma James Selma James (born Selma Deitch; formerly Weinstein; August 15, 1930) is an American writer, feminist, and social activist who is co-author of the women's movement book ''The Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community'' (with Mariarosa Da ...
, the
Young Lords The Young Lords, also known as the Young Lords Organization (YLO), were a left-wing political organization that originally developed from a Chicago street gang. With major branches in Chicago and New York City, they were known for their direct act ...
, and Sylvia Wynter.


Bibliography

* ''A FLY Girl's Guide to University: Being a Woman of Colour at Cambridge and Other Institutions of Power and Elitism'' (Verve Poetry Press, 2019), edited with Odelia Younge, Waithera Sebatindira, and Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan. * ''Feminism, Interrupted: Disrupting Power'' (
Pluto Press Pluto Press is a British independent book publisher based in London, founded in 1969. Pluto Press states that it publishes "radical, left‐wing non­‐fiction books", and is anti-capitalist and internationalist. It belongs to The Internat ...
, 2020). *''Red'', shortlisted for the 2020 Queen Mary ''
Wasafiri ''Wasafiri'' is a quarterly British literary magazine covering international contemporary writing. Founded in 1984, the magazine derives its name from a Swahili word meaning "travellers" that is etymologically linked with the Arabic word "safari ...
'' New Writing Prize in the Fiction category. *''Experiments in Imagining Otherwise'' (Hajar Press, 2021).


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Olufemi, Lola Living people 1996 births Alumni of Selwyn College, Cambridge Black British women writers Black British writers People from Edmonton, London English feminists English people of Nigerian descent Writers from the London Borough of Enfield