by Holly Genovese Holly Genovese is a Ph.D. student in American Studies at UT Austin, with graduate portfolios in both Black Studies and Women's and Gender Studies. Her work focuses on African American aesthetic resistance to incarceration in the … [Read more...] about Ableism and the “Post-Pandemic” Rollback of Extensions
Alt-University Critique
Near Death of an Accidental Academic – Guest Post
By Sandra Mizumoto Posey I’m an accidental academic, but once I fell into academia I kept falling. It was pure luck that the only job I was invited to interview for when I was searching for a job with benefits — in or out of academia — was the one … [Read more...] about Near Death of an Accidental Academic – Guest Post
Between Grief and Freedom: What My Dear Friend Taught Me About Getting to the Other Side of Academia
by Dr. Elana Jefferson-Tatum Dr. Elana Jefferson-Tatum, Ph.D. is hypnobirthing coach, full-spectrum doula, and practitioner-scholar of Africana religions. After several years in the academy teaching at Hobart and William Smith Colleges and then Tufts … [Read more...] about Between Grief and Freedom: What My Dear Friend Taught Me About Getting to the Other Side of Academia
Everyone Needs Play!
Those who follow me on social media know I've suddenly started painting a Disaffected Academic Bunnies(TM) series. I've never painted before, and cannot tell you why I have started now. I just encountered the artist Natalya Shaloshvili on IG randomly … [Read more...] about Everyone Needs Play!
Trauma on the Tenure Track – A Guest Post
by Twyla Meding, PhD. Twyla Meding is a recently retired associate professor at a large state university, with a specialty in early modern French studies. She earned her Ph.D. in 1992 from one of the top five programs in her field. My story … [Read more...] about Trauma on the Tenure Track – A Guest Post
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
A Year of “Reckoning”: On Geographers (Not) Doing Abolition – Guest Post
By: The Graduate Geographers’ Collective (1) Introduction Amidst the COVID19 pandemic, the New York Times declared that the national protests against police brutality, and specifically against Derek Chauvin’s murder of George Floyd, … [Read more...] about A Year of “Reckoning”: On Geographers (Not) Doing Abolition – Guest Post
Romancing the Academy for Fun and Profit, Part II – Novelist Guest Post
By Verity Lowell. Verity Lowell 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 for … [Read more...] about Romancing the Academy for Fun and Profit, Part II – 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