As a mid-career anthropologist, and in the midst of a career-shift, the workshop helped me reconnect with the experiences and beliefs that initially inspired me to practice ethnography and craft interdisciplinary scholarship. I also very much appreciated that we collectively workshopped our research endeavors in concrete, practical exercises that encouraged us to communicate in plain, clear, unapologetic language.
Nadine’s workshops are grounded in the very things we are taught to suppress in academia: emotions and feelings. She does not teach productivity hacks or unveil secret codes. Rather, she facilitates space for minoritized scholars to sense, name, and work through our various responses to institutional violence and overwork so that we can move forward with calm, clarity, and joy. Moreover, she was a sharp editor and a supportive coach who truly believed in the work all of us were doing. Her homework assignments and our group discussions helped me zero in on what my book’s contributions were and gave me the push I needed to make progress this summer.
Nadine’s workshop helped me articulate pragmatic and conceptual consequences of my work and was the first space I’ve ever been encouraged to claim and shape my own conceptual approach. The workshop coached me to realize where I get stuck and examine it as an interesting problem to explore in itself, rather than feeling “wrong” and censoring the creative energy that took me there. I felt reminded that my work is meaningful and needed–the workshop was a supportive session for sifting and winnowing, and I loved the community building of it all!
One of the best decisions I’ve ever made was clicking on a link that a Woman of Color faculty member shared on social media promoting Nadine Naber’s work. I reached out to Nadine not necessarily knowing on what I wanted us to focus but inspired by the statement on her website, “I believe every person has a theory. I help people claim and name their ideas.” After our first consultation, I was convinced that she could help me better claim my purposes and that she enacted the justice and liberation of which she spoke. Nadine’s customized approach, listening ear, and mindful conversations were key in the tangible results I saw within the two months we worked together. From talking through feedback on R&Rs to help me get unstuck and better highlight my contributions, strategizing my future book manuscript workshop, supporting me with guidance from start-to-finish on a successful campus visit – particularly the job talk – to helping me reflect on my beliefs regarding scholarly engagement for broader communities, Nadine always demonstrated commitment, genuine interest, excitement, and encouragement. Because I went in without a clear focus, I never imagined I’d witness so many benefits, but I did. Best of all, they emerged within a context of open communication, responsiveness, trust, and zero judgment. It was an honor to work with Nadine and I hope to do so in the future. In the meantime, I’ve recommended her without hesitation to friends and colleagues and encourage others to do the same.
Dr. Naber’s workshop provides a space for collective inspiration, confidence, and healing—an invaluable grounding for critical scholars at any point in their career who want to reconnect with and emphatically claim the core urgencies of their work. I found myself wishing I had had this workshop years earlier and simultaneously excited for the imaginative space it opened up for me as I think about my future work.
As the Director of the Social Justice major, I was interested in this workshop as our program is committed to de-imperializing the academy and following liberatory structures and supporting new faculty of color. But it is hard to describe what it is like to attend a workshop led by one of your academic heroes. this liberating writing workshop helped me to more clearly name in my teaching and mentoring how these imperializing structures of the academic world have been creating ensuant anxieties for those of us working in the margins with radical methodologies.
Nadine Naber’s excellent workshop encouraged scholars to conceptualize beyond their fields in order to further interrogate the imperialist ideologies within their frameworks. This struck a chord with me, since my training in postcolonial and cultural studies in the literature dept at Northwestern University felt incomplete without engaging in embodied practices. Nadine Naber called on scholars to reclaim themselves from the tides of academic violations and isolation, and to collectively envision, especially for young scholars of color, those of us in the field who have their backs. Although the emotive grounding was in itself essential work, this layering of the movement from grounding—in the most solid terms of love into light—became a radical re-conception of academic practices. But it was just the start of liberating one’s work: the hands-on activities encouraged us to create liberating methodologies and creative conceptualizations rooted in critical heritage practices. Nadine Naber has offered not only thoughtful forums to ensure that our practices are part of liberating structures, but also clear statements of the critical problems. As my current book project crosses inter-disciplinary lines between cultural studies and digital activism, the ways that I have been naming these forms of agency needed more clarity. As I have been struggling with how to radically conceptualize my project, which demands more attention to women activists and their liberatory structures, this workshop suggested strategies to name and claim the practices and protests and expressions in artistic and digital form of these women activists, so, too, these alternative feminisms showed radical urgencies. Nadine Naber’s workshop should be required in all universities, for this is exactly the work that we need to do. As I more thoughtfully construct De-imperializing Gender: Public Protest, Digital Activism, & U.S. Muslim Solidarities, my work has been strengthened by the insight of this great scholar, who has set up a radical practice of ushering this emergent Arab American Studies and other American Studies fields in not only identifying the extensive harms, but calling forth alternative feminisms, and in this, this great scholar and workshop leader is also, in the most profound ways a healer.
Nadine’s “Liberate Your Research” workshop influenced me more than I could have imagined. She created an authentic and welcoming space, deftly guiding participants to connect with their research and each other. I have found myself thinking about, defining, and shaping my methodology in deeper and clearer ways. I’m charting my path in a way that finally feels authentic to who I am, what I know, and the contributions I hope to make.
The workshop has stayed with me, it has really strengthened me and infused me with creative power – something I deeply cherish and commit to nurturing. Your work is really important and a gift that I receive with immense gratitude and awe. I have recovered my faith in the power of hope, dreams, visions and magic that is so fundamental to bringing about the world we want to create for ourselves and each other through our research.
Nadine’s patience, creativity and compassion sparked many “fires” of writing possibilities and projects/opportunities for me. I am excited about writing after ages!
Nadine’s understanding and enactment of feminist pedagogy, while focused on the content, are truly inspirational and even heartwarming. Nadine’s presentation on self-healing along with the encouragement and insightful feedback for reconceptualizing the frameworks/lenses through which we think and write was freeing. It would be wonderful to refashion the academy to reflect such values. If only…!
