Excited to share our first Career Success Digest of the year! Many successful Interview Intervention clients, plus offers, negotiations, and someone making the hard decision to leave the academy. Also, new this time: reactions from Karen's on-campus … [Read more...] about Career Success Digest #1 of 2021-2022
Regarding bell hooks
bell hooks did not write for me. She did not write for white women. White people were not excluded--her spirit and intellect were too capacious for that. We could learn from her, and many did. But we weren't the priority in any way. Her priority, … [Read more...] about Regarding bell hooks
Nihilism Was Inevitable
A genre of tweet has been gaining steam the last couple weeks, about the complete meaninglessness of academic job application documents or processes. It's all a crap shoot, argues this line of thought. Further, the collapse in hiring has only exposed … [Read more...] about Nihilism Was Inevitable
Toxic Hope
This story was shared by a reader recently. They have given me permission to share it here anonymously. Rarely have I seen the sickness of the PhD apparatus so clearly articulated. "Toxic hope" is another way of saying Berlant's "cruel optimism" … [Read more...] about Toxic Hope
Makeup Monday: In Which White People Discover Oils
One of the biggest discoveries of these long pandemic years, for me, has been the world of oils. Facial oils, of course (long time readers will remember my ongoing love affair with Lancer Omega Hydrating Oil, which continues). But also body oils, … [Read more...] about Makeup Monday: In Which White People Discover Oils
Makeup Monday Returns: Pandemic Lips
There is probably not one day that has gone by in the pandemic where I didn't think about wanting to write a new Makeup Monday blog post. Fact is, makeup is one of my main pandemic coping mechanisms. It's irrational, since there is literally nowhere … [Read more...] about Makeup Monday Returns: Pandemic Lips
I Hate Dudes Like Bill in The Chair – Guest Post
By Tamara MCDr. Tamara MC is an Applied Linguist and Middle Eastern Studies scholar. She researches and writes about women and spirituality, specifically her hybrid identity of growing up simultaneously Jewish and Muslim on a Sufi commune in Texas. … [Read more...] about I Hate Dudes Like Bill in The Chair – Guest Post
Romancing the Academy for Fun and Profit, Part I – A New Novelist Guest Post
By Verity Lowell. Verity Lowell, PhD, is a professor and occasional curator. She likes imagining and describing a world where art, ambition, and history provide the background for diverse and steamy love stories, mostly about women falling hard … [Read more...] about Romancing the Academy for Fun and Profit, Part I – A New Novelist Guest Post
Bullying in Academia: A Disheartening Q and A
KK: This is a dialogue that happened on Facebook this week. If you ever wanted a window onto academic bullying... this is it. The responses are shared with permission. Where names are listed, commenters actively REQUESTED this for transparency's … [Read more...] about Bullying in Academia: A Disheartening Q and A
Why Is It Always the Historians?
"Why is it always the historians?" I muttered to myself after another little dustup on Twitter, another historian posting some jaunty, gaslighting, evasive, disaster-normalizing, "fellow-historians, give me your best advice for advisees applying to … [Read more...] about Why Is It Always the Historians?