Episodes
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Today’s book is: The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World (Princeton University Press, 2024), by Dr. Allison Pugh, which explores the human connections that underlie our work, arguing that what people do for each other is valuable and worth preserving. Drawing on in-depth interviews and observations with people in a broad range of professions—from physicians, teachers, and coaches to chaplains, therapists, caregivers, and hairdressers—Dr. Pugh develops the concept of “connective labor,” a kind of work that relies on empathy, the spontaneity of human contact, and a mutual recognition of each other’s humanity. The threats to connective labor are not only those posed by advances in AI or apps; Dr. Pugh demonstrates how profit-driven campaigns imposing industrial logic shrink the time for workers to connect, enforce new priorities of data and metrics, and introduce standardized practices that hinder our ability to truly see each other. She concludes with profiles of organizations where connective labor thrives, offering practical steps for building a social architecture that works. Vividly illustrating how connective labor enriches the lives of individuals and binds our communities together, The Last Human Job is a compelling argument for us to recognize, value, and protect humane work in an increasingly automated and disconnected world.
Our guest is: Dr. Allison Pugh, who is Professor of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University, and the 2024-25 Vice President of the American Sociological Association. She writes about how people forge connections and find meaning and dignity at work and at home. She is the author of The Tumbleweed Society: Working and Caring in an Age of Insecurity and Longing and Belonging: Parents, Children, and Consumer Culture. Her writing has appeared in leading publications such as The New Yorker, the New York Times, and the New Republic.
Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, the producer of the Academic Life podcast. She holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore what stories we tell and what happens to those we never tell.
Playlist for listeners:
Talking To Strangers
Making A Meaningful Life
How to Human
Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World
More Than A Glitch
Meditation and the Academic Life
Belonging: The Science of Creating Connection and Bridging Divides
Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can support the show by posting, assigning or sharing episodes. Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 225+ Academic Life episodes? You’ll find them all archived here.
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In early June 2020, Christina Gessler and Zerlina Maxwell met remotely to discuss Maxwell’s soon-to-be-released book. This episode is an encore presentation of that discussion. As we watch the race to the 2024 United States presidential election, we revisit this conversation from four years ago to reconsider lessons learned and those ignored in the race to the 2020 presidential election.
Today’s book is: The End of White Politics: How to Heal Our Liberal Divide (Legacy Lit, 2020), by Zerlina Maxwell, which examines the past and present problems of the Left. After working on presidential campaigns for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, Maxwell gained first-hand knowledge of what liberals have and have not been doing right over the past few elections. Ultimately, these errors worked in President Donald Trump's favor in 2016; he ran a campaign on white identity politics, successfully tapping into white male angst and resistance. In 2020, after the Democratic Party's most historically diverse pool of presidential candidates dwindled down to Joe Biden, once again an older white man, Maxwell asked: what now, liberals? Fueled by Maxwell's trademark wit and candor, The End of White Politics dismantles the problems of the Left, challenging everyone from young "Bernie Bros" to power players in the "Billionaire Boys' Club." Whether tackling the white privilege that enabled Mayor Pete Buttigieg's presidential run, the controversial #HashtagActivism of the Millennial generation, the massive individual donations that sway politicians toward maintaining the status quo of income inequality, or the lingering racism that debilitated some Democratic presidential contenders and cut their promising campaigns short, Maxwell pulls no punches in her critique. Underlying all of these individual issues, Maxwell argues, is the "liberal-minded" party's struggle to engage women and communities of color, and its preoccupation with catering to the white, male working class that threatens to be its most lethal shortfall.
Our guest is: Zerlina Maxwell, the host of Mornings with Zerlina on Sirius XM, and the Director of Progressive Programming for SiriusXM. She was the Director of Progressive Media for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, and acted as a campaign spokesperson for the Presidential Debates. She writes for a variety of national media outlets, is a frequent college campus speaker, and is the author of The End Of White Politics: How To Heal Our Liberal Divide. She has a law degree from Rutgers Law School Newark and a B.A. in International Relations from Tufts University.
Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, the producer of the Academic Life podcast. She holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore what stories we tell and what happens to those we never tell.
Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can support the show by posting, assigning or sharing episodes. Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 225+ Academic Life episodes? You’ll find them all archived here.
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Episodes manquant?
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Today’s book is: Reunited: Family Separation and Central American Youth Migration (Russell Sage Foundation, 2024), by Dr. Ernesto Castañeda and Daniel Jenks, which explains the reasons for Central American youth migration, describes the journey, and documents how minors experienced separation from their families and their subsequent reunification. Castañeda and Jenks find that these minors migrate on their own for three main reasons: gang violence, lack of educational and economic opportunity, and a longing for family reunification.
The authors recount these young migrants’ journey to the U.S. border, detailing the difficulties passing through Mexico, their encounters with U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials, and staying in shelters while their sponsorship, placement, and departure are arranged. The authors also describe the tensions the youth face when they reunite with family members they may view as strangers. Despite their biological, emotional, and financial bonds to these relatives, the youth must learn how to relate to new authority figures and decide whether or how to follow their rules. They are likely to have lived through traumatizing experiences that inhibit their integration. Consequently, schools and social service organizations are crucial, the authors argue, for enhancing youth migrants’ sense of belonging and their integration into their new communities. Bilingual programs, Spanish-speaking PTA groups, message boards, mentoring of immigrant children, and after-school programs for members of reunited families are all helpful in supporting immigrant youth as they learn English, finish high school, apply to college, and find jobs. Offering a complex exploration of youth migration and family reunification, Reunited provides a moving account of how young Central American migrants make the journey north and ultimately reintegrate with their families in the United States.
Our guest is: Dr. Ernesto Castañeda, who is director of the Center for Latin American and Latino studies at American University.
The co-author is: Daniel Jenks, who is a doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania.
Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, the producer of the Academic Life podcast. She holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore what stories we tell and what happens to those we never tell.
Playlist for listeners:
Immigration Realities
Community Building
The Fight To Save the Town
Hands Up, Don't Shoot: Researching Racial Injustice
We Are Not Dreamers
Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can support the show by posting, assigning or sharing episodes. Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 200+ Academic Life episodes? You’ll find them all archived here.
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Subatomic Writing: Six Fundamental Lessons to Make Language Matter (Johns Hopkins UP, 2023), by Johns Hopkins University instructor Jamie Zvirzdin, is a guide for writing about science—from the subatomic level up!
Subatomic Writing teaches that the building blocks of language are like particles in physics. These particles, combined and arranged, form something greater than their parts: all matter in the literary universe. This interdisciplinary approach helps scientists, science writers, and editors improve their writing in fundamental areas as they build from the sounds in a word to the pacing of a paragraph. These areas include: sound and sense; word classes; grammar and syntax; punctuation; rhythm and emphasis; and pacing and coherence. Equally helpful for students needing to learn to write clearly about science and for scientists hoping to create more effective course material, papers, and grant applications, this guide builds confidence in writing abilities. Each lesson provides exercises that build on each other, strengthening readers’ capacity to communicate ideas and data, all while learning basic particle physics along the way.
Our guest is: Jamie Zvirzdin, who teaches science writing at Johns Hopkins University and researches ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays for the University of Utah. Her writing has been featured in The Atlantic, Kenyon Review, and Issues in Science and Technology.
Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, the producer of the Academic Life podcast. She holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore what stories we tell and what happens to those we never tell.
Playlist about unpacking hidden curriculum of writing books:
Before and After the Book Deal
Writing Your Book Proposal
The Dissertation to Book Workbook
A Guide to Getting Unstuck
Finding Your Argument
Top Ten Struggles in Writing a Book Manuscript and What to Do About It
Open Access Publishing Explained
Stylish Academic Writing Tips
University Press Submissions and the Peer Review Process
Do You Need To Hire A Developmental Editor?
Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can support the show by posting, assigning or sharing episodes. Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 200+ Academic Life episodes? You’ll find them all archived here.
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Today’s book is: Black Woman on Board: Claudia Hampton, the California State University, and the Fight to Save Affirmative Action (University of Rochester Press, 2024) by Dr. Donna J. Nicol, which examines the leadership strategies that Black women educators have employed as influential power brokers in predominantly white colleges and universities in the United States. Black Woman on Board tells the extraordinary story of Dr. Claudia H. Hampton, the California State University (CSU) system's first Black woman trustee, who later became the board's first woman chair, and her twenty-year fight (1974–94) to increase access within the CSU for historically marginalized and underrepresented groups. Amid a growing white backlash against changes brought on by the 1960s Civil Rights and Black Power Movements, Dr. Nicol argues that Hampton enacted "sly civility" to persuade fellow trustees, CSU system officials, and state lawmakers to enforce federal and state affirmative action mandates. Black Woman on Board explores how Hampton methodically "played the game of boardsmanship," using the soft power she cultivated amongst her peers to remove barriers that might have impeded the implementation and expansion of affirmative action policies and programs. In illuminating the ways that Hampton transformed the CSU as the "affirmative action trustee," this remarkable book makes an important contribution to the history of higher education and to the historiography of Black women's educational leadership in the post-Civil Rights era.
Our guest is: Dr. Donna J. Nicol, who is the Associate Dean in the College of Liberal Arts at California State University, Long Beach, CA.
Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is the producer of the Academic Life podcast.
Listeners may enjoy this playlist:
Black Women, Ivory Tower
Leading from the Margins
Presumed Incompetent
PhDing While Parenting
Is Grad School For Me?
How Girls Achieve
Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can support the show by posting, assigning or sharing episodes. Join us to learn from experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 225+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening!
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Why do we assume that computers always get it right?
Today’s book is: Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World (MIT Press, 2019), in which Professor Meredith Broussard argues that our collective enthusiasm for applying computer technology to every aspect of life has resulted in a tremendous amount of poorly designed systems. We are so eager to do everything digitally—hiring, driving, paying bills, even choosing romantic partners—that we have stopped demanding that our technology actually work. Broussard, a software developer and journalist, reminds us that there are fundamental limits to what we can (and should) do with technology. With this book, she offers a guide to understanding the inner workings and outer limits of technology—and issues a warning that we should never assume that computers always get things right. Making a case against technochauvinism—the belief that technology is always the solution—Broussard argues that it's just not true that social problems would inevitably retreat before a digitally enabled Utopia. To prove her point, she undertakes a series of adventures in computer programming. She goes for an alarming ride in a driverless car, concluding “the cyborg future is not coming any time soon”; uses artificial intelligence to investigate why students can't pass standardized tests; deploys machine learning to predict which passengers survived the Titanic disaster; and attempts to repair the U.S. campaign finance system by building AI software. If we understand the limits of what we can do with technology, Broussard tells us, we can make better choices about what we should do with it to make the world better for everyone.
Our guest is: Professor Meredith Broussard, who is Associate Professor at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University and Research Director at the NYU Alliance for Public Interest Technology. She is the author of Artificial Unintelligence, and of More Than A Glitch. Her work has been featured in the New Yorker, the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Economist, and more. She appears in the 2020 documentary Coded Bias and serves on the advisory board for the Center for
Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, the producer of the Academic Life podcast. She holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore what stories we tell (and why) and what happens to those we never tell.
For listeners who want to learn more:
More Than A Glitch
Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can support the show by posting, assigning or sharing episodes. Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 200+ Academic Life episodes? You’ll find them all archived here.
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Today’s book is: Immigration Realities: Challenging Common Misperceptions (Columbia UP, 2024), by Ernesto Castaneda and Carina Cione, which is a practical, evidence-based primer on immigrants and immigration. Each chapter debunks a frequently encountered claim and answers common questions. Presenting the latest findings and decades of interdisciplinary research in an accessible way, Dr. Castañeda and Carina Cione emphasize the expert consensus that immigration is vital to the United States and many other countries around the world. Featuring original insights from research conducted in El Paso, Texas, Immigration Realities considers a wide range of places, ethnic groups, and historical eras. It provides the key data and context to understand how immigration affects economies, crime rates, and social welfare systems, and it sheds light on contentious issues such as the safety of the U.S.-Mexico border and the consequences of Brexit. This book is an indispensable guide for all readers who want to counter false claims about immigration and are interested in what the research shows.Our guest is: Dr. Ernesto Castañeda, who is the director of the Immigration Lab and the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies at American University. His books include A Place to Call Home: Immigrant Exclusion and Urban Belonging in New York, Paris, and Barcelona (2018); Building Walls: Excluding Latin People in the United States (2019); and Reunited: Family Separation and Central American Youth Migration (2024).The Immigration Realities co-author is: Carina Cione, who is a sociologist and writer based out of Baltimore. Their work has been featured by the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Trauma Care, El Paso News, and American University’s Center for Latin American & Latino Studies Working Paper Series.Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is the producer of the Academic Life podcast.Listeners may enjoy this playlist:We Are Not Dreamers: Undocumented Scholars Theorize Undocumented Life in the United StatesWe Take Our Cities With UsSecret HarvestsThe Ungrateful RefugeeThe Translator's DaughterWhere Is Home?Who Gets Believed: When the Truth Isn't EnoughWelcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can support the show by posting, assigning and sharing episodes. Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 225+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening!Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/academic-life
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Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about publishing but were too afraid to ask.
Before and After the Book Deal: A Writer’s Guide to Finishing, Publishing, Promoting, and Surviving Your First Book (Catapult, 2020) by Courtney Maum is a funny, candid guide about breaking into the marketplace. Cutting through the noise, dispelling rumors and remaining positive, Before and After the Book Deal answers questions like: are MFA programs worth the time and money, and how do people actually sit down and finish a novel? Should you expect a good advance, and why aren’t your friends saying anything about your book? Before and After the Book Deal has over 150 contributors from all walks of the industry, including international bestselling authors, agents, editors, film scouts, translators, disability and minority activists, offering advice and sharing anecdotes about even the most taboo topics in the industry. Their wisdom will help aspiring authors find a foothold in the publishing world and navigate the challenges of life before and after publication with sanity and grace. Covering questions ranging from the logistical to the existential, Before and After the Book Deal is the definitive guide for anyone who has ever wanted to know what it’s really like to be an author.
Our guest is: Courtney Maum, who is the author of five books, including Before and After the Book Deal, which Vanity Fair named one of the ten best books for writers, and The Year of the Horses, chosen by The Today Show as the best read for mental health awareness. A writing coach, director of the writing workshop “Turning Points,” and educator, her mission is to help people hold on to the joy of art-making in a culture obsessed with turning artists into brands. Passionate about literary citizenship, she sits on the advisory councils of The Authors Guild and The Rumpus.
Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, the producer of the Academic Life podcast. She holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore what stories we tell and what happens to those we never tell.
Listeners may also enjoy this playlist:
The Artists Joy: A Guide to Getting Unstuck
Becoming the Writer You Already Are
The DIY Writing Retreat
The Top Ten Struggles in Writing a Book Manuscript & What to Do About It
Make Your Art No Matter What
The Emotional Arc of Turning A Dissertation Into A Book
Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can help support the show by posting, assigning or sharing episodes. Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 200+ Academic Life episodes? Find them all here.
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Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/academic-life -
Alexandra Chan thinks she has life figured out until, in the Year of the Ram, the death of her father—her last parent—brings her to her knees, an event seemingly foretold in Chinese mythology.
Today’s book is: In The Garden Behind the Moon: A Memoir of Loss, Myth, and Magic (Flashpoint Books, 2024), by Dr. Alexandra Chan, who is a left-brained archaeologist and successful tiger daughter. But she finds her logical approach to life fails her in the face of profound grief. Slowly, painfully, wondrously, she discovers that her father and ancestors have left threads of renewal in the artifacts and stories of their lives. Through a long-lost interview conducted by Roosevelt’s Federal Writers’ Project, a basket of war letters written from the Burmese jungle, a box of photographs, her world travels, and a deepening relationship to her art, this archaeologist makes her greatest discovery to date: the healing power of enchantment. In an epic story that travels from prerevolution China to the South under Jim Crow, from the Pacific theater of WWII to Iceland, and beyond, Alexandra Chan takes us on a journey to meaning in the wake of devastating loss, sharing the insights and tools that allow her to rebuild her life and resurrect her spirit. In the Garden Behind the Moon is a captivating family portrait and an urgent call to awaken to the magic and wonder of daily life.
Our guest is: Dr. Alexandra A. Chan, who is a mom, archaeologist, photographer, painter and writer. She is the author of Slavery in the Age of Reason: Archaeology at a New England Farm, and In The Garden Behind the Moon: A Memoir of Loss, Myth, and Magic, as well as journal articles and book chapters about the archaeology of northern slavery, early African America, and questions of race, place, identity, and becoming. She lives with her husband, her two sons, and their menagerie of animals in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is the producer of the Academic Life podcast. She holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore what stories we tell and what happens to those we never tell.
Listeners may enjoy this memoir playlist:
The Translator's Daughter
We Take Our Cities With Us
Whiskey Tender
Secret Harvests
The Things We Didn't Know
Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can help support the show by posting, assigning or sharing episodes. Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 200+ Academic Life episodes? Find them all here.
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You Will Get Through This: A Mental Health First-Aid Kit- Help for Depression, Anxiety, Grief, and More (Experiment, 2024) was written by three practicing therapists to serve as a tool kit. Drawing on the techniques the book’s authors Julie Radico, Nicole Halverson and Charity O’Reilly use with their own clients, You Will Get Through This offers a holistic understanding of more than twenty common life challenges, plus compassionate and evidence-based strategies for when you’re struggling. In each chapter, you’ll find what the research says about the issue, coping mechanisms that are used in actual therapy rooms, step-by-step guidance on using these strategies in real life and overcoming common obstacles, and tips for communicating with your loved ones. You will also find practical advice on accessing professional help, deciding if a therapist is the right fit for you (and breaking up with them if they’re not), and paying for therapy.
Our guest is: Dr. Julie Radico, a board-certified clinical health psychologist with ten years of experience working in primary care settings. In 2023, she opened an independent consulting, coaching, and therapy practice. She holds a doctoral degree in clinical psychology and master’s degrees in clinical psychology & counseling and clinical health psychology. She is the co-author—with Charity O’Reilly and Dr. Nicole Helverson—of You Will Get Through This: A Mental Health First-Aid Kit.
Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, the producer of the Academic Life podcast. She holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore what stories we tell and what happens to those we never tell.
Listeners may also enjoy this playlist:
Mindfulness
Talking to Strangers
Being Well in Academia
Tell Me What You Want
Belonging : The Science of Creating Connection
The Good-Enough Life
The Value of Taking A Break from Overworking and Underliving
Managing Your Mental Health During Your PhD
Addiction and Sobriety in Academia
Making A Meaningful Life
Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can help support the show by posting, assigning or sharing episodes. Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 200+ Academic Life episodes? Find them all here.
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Have you been told your draft isn’t ready yet, because you still need to find your argument? We have all gotten that feedback at some point. But what we haven’t been told is how to find our argument. Today we return to The Dissertation-to-Book Workbook: Exercises for Developing and Revising Your Book Manuscript (U Chicago Press, 2023), with Dr. Katelyn E. Knox and Dr. Allison Van Deventer, to learn how to find and assemble an argument. Whether you are writing an article, dissertation or a book, this episode is the skills workshop you need!
Our guest is: Dr. Allison Van Deventer, who is a freelance developmental editor for academic authors in the humanities and qualitative social sciences. She is the co-author of The Dissertation-to-Book Workbook: Exercises for Developing and Revising Your Book Manuscript.
Our co-guest is: Dr. Katelyn Knox, who is an associate professor of French at the University of Central Arkansas. She is the author of Race on Display in 20th- and 21st-Century France. She is the co-author of The Dissertation-to-Book Workbook: Exercises for Developing and Revising Your Book Manuscript.
Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, the producer of the Academic Life podcast. She holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore what stories we tell (and why) and what happens to those we never tell.
Listeners may also enjoy:
The Dissertation to Book Workbook
The Grant Writing Guide
Where Research Begins
Book Proposals
Learning from Rejection and Failure
Contracts, Agents and Editors: Demystifying the Path to Publication
Dissertations Wanted : A Conversation with the Editor of the University of Wyoming Press
University Press Submissions and the Peer Review Process
Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can support the show by posting, assigning or sharing episodes. Join us here again to learn from even more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 200+ Academic Life episodes? You’ll find them all archived here.
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Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/academic-life -
Schuyler Bailar didn’t set out to be an activist, but his very public transition to the Harvard men’s swim team put him in the spotlight. His choice to be open about his journey and share his experience has evolved into tireless advocacy for inclusion and collective liberation.
Today’s book is: He/She/They: How We Talk About Gender and Why it Matters (Hachette, 2023), by Schuyler Bailar, which gives readers the essential language and context of gender, paving the way for understanding, acceptance and connection. He/She/They compassionately addresses fundamental topics, from why being transgender is not a choice and why pronouns are important, to complex issues including how gender-affirming healthcare can be lifesaving. With a narrative rooted in science and history, Schuyler helps restore common sense and humanity to a discussion that continues to be divisively and deceptively politicized. In chapters both myth-busting and affirming, compassionate and fierce, Schulyer offers readers an urgent and lifesaving book to change the conversation about gender.
Our guest is: Schuyler Bailar (he/him), who is an educator, author, and advocate. He is the first transgender athlete to compete in any sport on an NCAA Division 1 men’s team, and has earned numerous honors including the Harvard Varsity Director’s Award. He is one of the top LGBTQ+ educators and advocates, a leading DEI speaker and advisor, the creator of the LaneChanger.com gender literacy online learning series, and the author of the award-winning book He/She/They: How We Talk About Gender and Why it Matters. Schuyler holds a degree in Cognitive Neuroscience and Evolutionary Psychology from Harvard, and works in four research labs focusing in clinical psychology and public health.
Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is the producer of the Academic Life podcast. She holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore what stories we tell and what happens to those we never tell.
Listeners may enjoy this playlist:
Raising Them
Gender and the Brain
Sex Matters
Tomboy
Belonging
Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can help support the show by posting, assigning or sharing episodes. Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 200+ Academic Life episodes? Find them all here.
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Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/academic-life -
When professor jobs are scarce and most academic jobs are temporary, what do you do if you still want to work on a campus? Can you make the leap to admin? How do you make the leap?
Dr. Jacquelyn Ardam joins us to explain the hidden curriculum of the academic job market. She shares what helped her pivot roles from visiting professor to campus administrator, how research and writing are still a meaningful part of her life, and why she is happier now running a campus research center than she was in her previous jobs.
Our guest is: Dr. Jacquelyn Ardam, who is the Director of the Undergraduate Research Center for the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at UCLA. She has founded several undergraduate research programs and co-directs UCLA’s Mellon Mays University Fellowship program. Jacquelyn holds a PhD in English from UCLA and is a specialist in modern and contemporary poetry. She has written about art, literature, culture, and higher education for peer-reviewed journals and public venues, and is the author of Avidly Reads Poetry.
Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, the producer of the Academic Life podcast. She holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore what stories we tell and what happens to those we never tell.
Listeners may enjoy this playlist:
Chasing Chickens: When Life After Higher Education Doesn't Go the Way You Planned
Contingent Faculty and the Remaking of Higher Education
The American Association of University Professors
Leaving Academia
Learning from Rejection and Failure
Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can help support the show by posting, assigning or sharing episodes. Join us here to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 200+ Academic Life episodes? You’ll find them all archived here.
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How do public markets, as ordinary as they seem, carry the weight of a city’s history? How do such everyday buildings reflect a city’s changing political, social, and economic needs, through their yearslong transformations in forms, functions, and management?
Today’s book is: Everyday Architecture in Context: Public Markets in Hong Kong, 1842-1981 (Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, 2023), by Dr. Carmen C. M. Tsui. Integrating architecture and history, the book invites readers to go through the growth and governance of colonial Hong Kong by tracing the past and present of public markets as a study of extensive first-hand historical materials. Readers witness the changes in Hong Kong markets from hawker pitches to classical market halls to clean modernist municipal complexes. This book offers a new perspective of understanding the familiar everyday markets with historical contexts possibly unfamiliar to most, studying markets as a microcosm of the city and a capsule of its history.
Our guest is: Dr. Carmen C. M. Tsui, who is an architect and urban historian. She is an associate professor in the Department of History at Lingnan University, HKSAR. She obtained her Ph.D. in Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley, with a specialization in the history of architecture and urbanism.
Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, the producer of the Academic Life podcast. She holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore what stories we tell (and why) and what happens to those we never tell.
Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can help support the show by posting, assigning or sharing episodes. Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 200+ Academic Life episodes? You’ll find them all archived here.
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How do you turn a dissertation into a book?
Today’s book is: The Dissertation-to-Book Workbook: Exercises for Developing and Revising Your Book Manuscript (U Chicago Press, 2023), by Dr. Katelyn E. Knox and Dr. Allison Van Deventer, which offers a series of manageable, concrete steps and exercises to help you revise your academic manuscript into a book. The Dissertation-to-Book Workbook offers clear examples, as well as targeted exercises, checklists and prompts to take all the guesswork out of writing a book. You will learn how to clarify your book’s core priorities, pinpoint your organizing principle, polish your narrative arc, evaluate your evidence, and much more. Using what this workbook calls “book questions and chapter answers,” you will learn how to thread your book’s main ideas through its chapters, assemble an argument, and revise the manuscript. By the time you complete the workbook, you will have confidence that your book is a cohesive, focused manuscript that tells the story you want to tell.
Our guest is: Dr. Katelyn Knox, who is an associate professor of French at the University of Central Arkansas. She is the author of Race on Display in 20th- and 21st-Century France.
Our co-guest is: Dr. Allison Van Deventer, who is a freelance developmental editor for academic authors in the humanities and qualitative social sciences.
Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, the producer of the Academic Life podcast. She holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore what stories we tell (and why) and what happens to those we never tell.
Listeners may also enjoy:
Stylish Academic Writing
The Emotional Arc of Turning A Dissertation Into A Book
The Artist's Joy: A Guide to Getting Unstuck and Embracing Imperfection
Becoming the Writer You Already Are
Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can support the show by posting, assigning or sharing episodes. Join us here again to learn from even more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 200+ Academic Life episodes? You’ll find them all archived here.
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Today’s book is: Freeman’s Challenge: The Murder That Shook America’s Original Prison for Profit (U Chicago Press, 2024), by Dr. Robin Bernstein, which tells the story of a teenager named William Freeman. Convicted of a horse theft he insisted he did not commit, he was sentenced to five years of hard labor in Auburn’s new prison. Uniting incarceration and capitalism, the facility included industrial factories where prisoners worked as “slaves of the state.” They earned no wages, yet they manufactured furniture, animal harnesses, carpets, and combs, which consumers bought throughout the North. Then one young man challenged the system. Incensed at being forced to work without pay, William Freeman demanded wages. His challenge triggered violence: first against him, then by him. Freeman committed a murder that terrified and bewildered white America. And white America struck back—with aftereffects that reverberate into our lives today in the persistent myth of inherent Black criminality. William Freeman’s story reveals how the North invented prison for profit half a century before the Thirteenth Amendment outlawed slavery “except as a punishment for crime”—and how Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and other African Americans invented strategies of resilience and resistance in a city dominated by a citadel of unfreedom. Through one Black man, his family, and his city, Dr. Bernstein tells an explosive, moving story about the entangled origins of prison for profit and anti-Black racism.
Our guest is: Dr. Robin Bernstein, who is an award-winning cultural historian specializing in race and racism from the nineteenth century to the present. She teaches at Harvard University, where she is the Dillon Professor of American History and Professor of African and African American Studies and Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality.
Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, the producer of the Academic Life podcast. She holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore what stories we tell (and why) and what happens to those we never tell.
Playlist for listeners who wish to learn more:
Stitching Freedom: Embroidery and Incarceration
Education Behind the Wall
Hands Up, Don't Shoot: Researching Racial Injustice
The Journal of Higher Education in Prison
Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can support the show by posting, assigning or sharing episodes. Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 200+ Academic Life episodes? You’ll find them all archived here.
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Watching the footage of the January 6 insurrection, Professor Bradley Onishi wondered: If I hadn't left evangelicalism, would I have been there?
Today’s book is: Preparing for War: The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism—and What Comes Next (Broadleaf Books, 2023), by Dr. Bradley Onishi, which unpacks recent U.S. history to show how the insurrection at the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021 was not a blip or an aberration. It was the logical outcome of years of a White evangelical subculture's preparation for war. Religion scholar and former insider Bradley Onishi maps the origins of White Christian nationalism and traces its offshoots. Combining his own experiences in the youth groups and prayer meetings of the 1990s with an immersive look at the steady blending of White grievance politics with evangelicalism, Dr. Onishi crafts an engrossing account of the years-long campaign of White Christian nationalism that led to January 6. How did the rise of what Onishi calls the New Religious Right, between 1960 and 2015, give birth to violent White Christian nationalism during the Trump presidency and beyond? What propelled some of the most conservative religious communities in the country—communities of which Dr. Onishi was once a part—to ignite a cold civil war? Through chapters on White supremacy and segregationist theologies, conspiracy theories, the Christian-school movement, purity culture, and the right-wing media ecosystem, Professor Onishi pulls back the curtain on a subculture.
Our guest is: Dr. Brad Onishi, who is a scholar of religion and cohost of the Straight White American Jesus podcast. His writing has been published in the New York Times, LA Review of Books, and Religion & Politics, among other outlets. He holds degrees from Azusa Pacific University, Oxford University, and L'institut catholique de Paris, and received his PhD from the University of California at Santa Barbara. A TEDx speaker and the author, editor, or translator of four previous books, Dr. Onishi teaches at the University of San Francisco. He lives in the Bay Area with his wife and daughter.
Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, the producer of the Academic Life podcast. She holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore what stories we tell (and why) and what happens to those we never tell.
Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can support the show by posting, assigning or sharing episodes. Join us here again to learn from even more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 200+ Academic Life episodes? You’ll find them all archived here.
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Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/academic-life -
Have you had that dream—the one where you just leave academia? You quit your job, sell all your stuff, and board a plane for somewhere far, far away. But what happens once you land? Dr. Anne Boyd Rioux shares how she left her job in Louisiana and landed in Paris. She explains the steps of establishing a life abroad: working online; exploring new landscapes; frequently repacking suitcases; finding a new feeling of home; and navigating complex visa and residency requirements. As she candidly explores the benefits and downsides of being so mobile, she invites us all to wonder what comes next—when one path stops, and a new one begins.
Our guest is: Dr. Anne Boyd Rioux, who is the recipient of four NEH awards, holds a Ph.D. in American Studies, and was an English professor for twenty-three years. She recently sold her house in New Orleans and bought a one-way ticket to Paris. She chronicles her journeys in her newsletter “Letters from Anne,” and is currently writing a memoir. She has served on the Board of Directors of the Biographers International Organization, and her essays and reviews have appeared in the Washington Post, Salon, Lit Hub, Lapham’s Quarterly, and elsewhere. Anne has published seven books, and is passionate about reclaiming women writers who created fascinating, sometimes provocative, and often daring works that have been unavailable and unread for generations.
Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, the producer of the Academic Life podcast. She holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore what stories we tell (and why) and what happens to those we never tell.
Academic Life playlist about academics abroad:
Where Is Home Now?
Far from home: a conversation about academic relocation
Academic Life playlist about life after graduation:
Chasing Chickens
Contingent Faculty and the Remaking of Higher Education
Long road to the dream job in academia
Leaving Academia
Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can support the show by posting, assigning or sharing episodes. Join us here again to learn from even more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 200+ Academic Life episodes? You’ll find them all archived here.
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Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/academic-life -
Today’s book is: We Take Our Cities With Us (Ohio State UP, 2022), by Sorayya Khan. After her mother’s death, Sorayya Khan confronts her grief by revisiting their relationship, her parents’ lives, and her own Pakistani-Dutch heritage in a multicultural memoir that unfolds over seven cities and three continents. We Take Our Cities with Us ushers us from Khan’s childhood independence forged at her grandparents’ home in Lahore; to her adolescence in Pakistan’s new capital, Islamabad; to Syracuse and Ithaca, New York, where she finds her footing as the mother of young, brown sons in post-9/11 America; to her birthplace, Vienna, where her parents die; and finally to Amsterdam and Maastricht, the cities of her mother’s conflicted youth. In Khan’s gripping telling of her immigrant experience, she shows us what it is to raise children and lose parents in worlds other than your own. Drawing on family history, geopolitics, and art in this stunning story of loss, identity, and rediscovery, Khan illuminates the complexities of our evolving global world and its most important constant: love.
Our guest is: Sorayya Khan, who is the author of the novels City of Spies, Five Queen’s Road, and Noor. The daughter of a Pakistani father and a Dutch mother, she was born in Europe, grew up in Pakistan, and now lives in Ithaca, New York, with her family. She is a Visiting Fellow at Cornell University. Find her at sorayyakhan.com.
Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is the producer and host of the Academic Life podcast. She holds a PhD in history which she uses to explore which stories we tell (and why), and what happens to those we never tell.
Listeners may also enjoy discussions of these memoirs:
The Translator's Daughter
The Things We Didn't Know
Secret Harvests
Whiskey Tender
Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. You can help support our show by sharing episodes of the Academic Life.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/academic-life -
An increasing number of students worldwide attend graduate school while simultaneously navigating a variety of competing responsibilities in their personal lives. For many students, this includes both parenting and working full-time, while maintaining a rigorous graduate course-load. Because academia overwhelmingly defaults to assuming all graduate students’ needs are similar to those of middle-class single white males, PhDing while parenting remains under-explored in the literature, and hidden in plain sight on campus. Graduate students are often reluctant to talk to their supervisors about the strains of juggling a demanding private life while attending school…until they hit a personal crisis or they burn out. But what if supervisors were trained to mentor holistically? What if they tailored support, checking in with students not just about their academic progress, but about their off-campus priorities and problems as well?
In today’s episode, we explore why graduate supervisors need to be trained to connect their students to a variety of necessary resources, to help their student-parents get to PhDone. We explore the new case-study documenting experiences of doctoral students in South Africa juggling both parental and professional roles. And we dive into the findings of the new article “Balanced-Integration: A Dimension of Supervision to Support Students Navigating Parenthood in Pursuit of a PHD,” by Dr. S. Nkoala, which was published in South African Journal of Higher Education Volume 38, Number 1, in March 2024.
Our guest is: Dr. Sisanda Nkoala who is an Associate Professor in the Linguistics Department at the University of the Western Cape. She has won numerous awards, and serves as vice-chair of the IAMCR’s media education research section, the African Journalism Educators Network secretary-general, as an associate editor for the Journal of Communication Technology, a public representative on the South African Press Council, a member of the Film & Publication Board’s Appeals Tribunal, and as the vice-president of the South African Communication Association. She is published in many journals, and is the editor of 100 Years of Radio in South Africa, Volume 1: South African Radio Stations and Broadcasters Then & Now, and Community Radio, Digital Radio and the Future of Radio in South Africa.
Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, the producer of the Academic Life podcast. She holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore what stories we tell and what happens to those we never tell.
Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. You can help support the show by downloading, assigning, or sharing any of our 200+ episodes.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/academic-life - Montre plus
