To minimize the impact of the distance between us when we left graduate school, we committed to a weekly one-hour appointment. Though our weekly chats began as a way to maintain our friendship, they quickly became a way for us to continue to reap the benefits of our supportive work relationship and to navigate...
Read more »
Being an independent scholar means that research and academic writing must be redefined as pleasure: I research instead of watching TV or reading a book; I write instead of meeting with friends or going shopping; I edit and do professional activities at the cost of my family time.
Read more »
Academic life requires that one be able to move on command. But how does one do that?
Read more »
Commuting is no way to work. It’s also no way to live. And yet I’m surprised by how many of us there are. Probably every professor knows at least one couple in a similar situation.
Read more »
Motherhood and academia are in many ways an uneasy mix. And even more so when it comes to single motherhood.
Read more »
This piece attempts to challenge the stereotypes that single academics can write all the time (or any time we want), are free from family responsibility, and somehow have it “easier” than other academics.
Read more »
There are many proposals to transform institutions of peer review, and perhaps in time some will come to fruition. But there is a simple step that every concerned reviewer could take, right now, to make the process better, fairer, more useful and more human.
Read more »
It’s in the long-term best interests of the field on a variety of fronts that we work to play a more prominent role in the policy arena. But how do we do so?
Read more »
My wife and I had the first of our three children during my first year as a faculty member, so I've never really known what it is to be a professor or a father without simultaneously wearing the other hat.
Read more »
With all the bad advice being given about academia, or simply the lack of advice, where do we get good advice and how do we establish a better system for giving it?
Read more »
A discussion of academic media studies work outside the university.
Read more »
Collaborations are frowned upon in the humanities: monographs are still the prime currency in tenure and promotion, and our training doesn’t prepare or encourage us for the give and take that collaborative writing demands. For me that’s a shame, because I love writing with others.
Read more »
A discussion of the academic job market and hiring processes in the UK and Ireland.
Read more »
Performing motherhood while completing grad school is a complicated role to negotiate, and there are costs and benefits to consider. I write this post to discuss my own specific experiences as a media studies grad student mama, and propose considerations for a dialogue on the place of children and parenting within academe.
Read more »
We know there are certain things we must do to achieve tenure and maintain our employment. But we often become so obsessed with this—or the next step up after—that we forget to consider our reasons for going into the field to begin with.
Read more »
Creative Commons license to individual contributors.