Are you in a toxic relationship with academia? During my Liberate Your Research workshops with faculty and graduate students of color, I ask participants to share how they feel about their research. In every workshop, nearly every participant responds with words like: tortured, disempowered, and struggling. As we share, we realize that we are not …
Do you ever find yourself obsessing over what gatekeepers are going to think about your work? Have you ever feared that you may not survive an academic evaluation? Of course, hierarchical academic structures–reviews, tenure evaluations, etc.–create the conditions that foster these anxieties. Disciplinary conventions rooted in white supremacy and racist/classist/heterosexist gatekeeping intensify these anxieties for …
Do you ever feel like you “can’t write theory”? If so, you’re not alone. Most of my workshop participants say that “writing theory” makes them feel: tortured | overwhelmed | stuck | in chaos | like an imposter But it’s not you! It’s what Barbara Christian affirmed decades ago—that dominant disciplinary structures distinguish between analytics that deserve to be counted …
How to Write-Out Your Theoretical/Analytical Approach Read More »
Do you ever feel too exhausted to write? Let’s be real. Internalized academic oppression exhausts us. Traumatic experiences in our fields and on our campuses can lead many of us to ruminate: Do I even have the right to be in academia? How is my critique any different than others who have already published on this …
Academic oppression is breaking us. Nearly every social justice-based scholar I know goes through it—especially junior BIPOC scholars. Despite our expertise, many of us question the very worth of our scholarship within the university. The university’s competitive, capitalist structures lead us to believe that we are never enough. Writing under the scrutiny of evaluations, gatekeeping, …
Are you constantly feeling stuck while you are writing? Do you know what leads many radical scholars to feel stuck? We don’t always feel like we are enough. Here are some of the ways I see it showing up: We constantly second guess our research ideas. We feel miserable about our research. We feel like …
