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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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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up close shot of a typewriter

Writing for a Public Audience

I’ve been writing for public audiences since 2007, when I starting writing posts for the Religion in American History Blog. I was a graduate student, who felt a little–or maybe a lot–stifled by the academic styles of writing that focused engaging a specialized audience, other experts. I was writing a dissertation that I hoped spoke …

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