Ways of Knowing – Minna Salami on Sensuous Knowledge

The seminar is part of the seminar series “Ways of knowing Spring 2025” where we every Wednesday this Spring explore how Ways of Knowing manifest themselves in the field of artistic research right now. Read more about the seminar series and find upcoming seminars.

For this seminar, we welcome Minna Salami, writer and author of Sensuous Knowledge: A Black Feminist Approach for Everyone. Through lecture and discussion, Salami will explore key themes from her book, where she challenges dominant epistemologies and argues for a form of knowledge that is embodied, interconnected, and rooted in lived experience. Drawing from feminism, decolonial thought, and African philosophy, she proposes an alternative to Western rationalism—one that embraces complexity, nuance, and multiplicity.  

Salami’s work raises questions about the politics of perception, the role of sensuous knowledge in shaping our understanding of the world, and the intersections of feminism, philosophy, and artistic research. The seminar invites researchers, artists, and students to reflect on how knowledge is produced and how we might reimagine ways of knowing beyond binary thinking.  

The seminar is organised by Petra Bauer, Professor at SKH, together with the researcher Sofia Wiberg and the research school TRANSPLACE, KTH (see below for more information)

Join us for an engaging discussion that reconsiders knowledge through the lens of aesthetics, emotion, and social transformation.

Minna Salami is a Nigerian-Finnish and Swedish writer and social critic. She is a Research Chair and Senior Fellow at The New Institute, and the author of Can Feminism Be African? A Most Paradoxical Question (Harper Collins 2025) and Sensuous Knowledge: A Black Feminist Approach for Everyone (Bloomsbury 2020). She is a co-author of the children’s book The Power Book: What is it, Who Has it, and Why? (Quarto, 2019). Her books and essays are translated into multiple languages and Minna has drawn over a million readers to her award-winning blog, MsAfropolitan.com. Her writing can be found in the Financial Times, Guardian, Project Syndicate, Al Jazeera, and The Philosopher, among many others. She has consulted governments on gender and racial equality and speaks at institutions such as the Institute of Arts and Ideas, UN, EU, Oxford Union, Cambridge Union, Yale University, and the Singularity University at NASA. Minna is a Full Member of the Club of Rome and sits on the council of The Royal Institute of Philosophy. She is a board member of The African Feminist Initiative at Pennsylvania State University and the Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of the Sahel. She is a BMW Foundation Responsible Leader, and has served as chair for the House of Beautiful Business.  An alumnus of Lund University and SOAS University, Minna has lived in Nigeria, Sweden, Spain, and New York and currently lives between London and Hamburg.

Sofia Wiberg is a teacher and researcher at KTH and Konstfack, with a PhD in Urban Studies. Her work bridges urban planning and art, focusing on knowledge formation, practical knowledge, collective decision-making, power relations, and the limits of knowing. She is manager for the TRANSPLACE research school which aims to contribute to a radical sustainability transformation of urban planning practice.

TRANSPLACE is a doctoral school that explores in-depth and radical approaches to sustainability transitions. The focus is on practice- and action-oriented research to challenge existing methods and strengthen the reflective capacity within Swedish urban planning. The school is a collaboration between four academic institutions – KTH, Södertörn University, Uppsala University, and VTI. There are also several practice organizations associated with the school. The school currently has seven PhD students and two postdoctoral researchers.