Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Spotlight On: Dystopia, Uncertainty & Disruption As I write (in the first half of 2023), there are a lot of conversations about how awful everything is right now. This is not new but perhaps the weight of it seems particularly heavy. Or maybe this is the point where we […]
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Being an academic in dystopian times: Valuing your academic work
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Being an academic in dystopian times: valuing your academic work As I write this, there has been an escalation of white supremacist activity in the US, and the generally difficult political climate in both the US and the UK has not really become less difficult than when I wrote […]
Read More »Being an academic in dystopian times: Making time for activism
Whether current events have prompted you to become more politically active for the first time, or increase the time and effort you put into your activism, you must account for that in your plans. Neither your activism nor your health and work will benefit from you burning out. These will be difficult choices even if the need for being more involved is incontrovertible. Whatever form your activism takes, take the time to decide what is not going to happen, or be done to a lower standard, to make space for it.
Read More »The value of education
Trying to articulate the value of your PhD is complicated by the fact that debates about the value of education (at any level) are dominated by an instrumentalist, employment preparation discourse. I recall having a conversation with a friend back in the early 1990s in which she told me that her 6 year old son’s […]
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