A plastic cup buried in the sand on a beach

Academic Waste

For years, I’ve been writing about how academia works—and particularly about contingent labor, gender, and the adjunctification of the modern university. I’ve advocated for the impermanent members of the faculty because my own work in academia was only ever off the tenure track.  When I began reading Marc Bousquet’s How the University Works, I was …

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New Podcast Interviews!

Some of you might have been wondering what I’ve been up to lately. Mostly, it’s being a “learning coach” for a 2nd grader and a 7th grader attending virtual school. And editing, trying to make it through another pandemic year, grumbling about my foot and walking boot, herding cats, and spending an inordinate amount of …

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a dark well with an opening that shows the sky

What You’ll Lose

It’s that time after a visitation, in which everyone starts to leave, or maybe, to flee. They’ve seen the open casket. They’ve looked down upon the deceased; the funeral home has attempted to make the dead look as they did in life. (It hardly ever works.) Folks attending the visitation quietly but quickly move away …

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Teaching As Liberation

Yesterday, I learned that bell hooks passed away. And I, like so many others, was gutted by her loss. I didn’t know except through her writing. I never got to hear her speak. I only encountered her on the page. When I first picked up one of her books, I didn’t realize the impact that …

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Close up image of a paved road with a blurry dark blue and pink background

Just tell the truth

A few years ago, I applied to an MFA program at the university in the same town where they lived. I set up a meeting to have coffee with a faculty member in the program. He was only a few years older than me. He had a few books out, fiction, but he was pivoting …

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