104. 📕 must-reads for anyone in a university or the academy 📕
thinking about our position within the university
Hello, and happy Tuesday! I hope that y’all had a lovely long weekend!
In the spirit of the long weekend, I’ll be sharing only a few items this week. We’ll go back to our regularly scheduled programming next week. 😊
📚 Still reading.
I read two pieces over the weekend that I think everyone should read. I think anyone who has had some interaction with a university or the academy (student, instructor, researcher) should read these, as they both illuminate really important structural limitations of the university that tend to go unacknowledged or unchecked.
Ishii, Douglas S. "11 Ambivalent Contingency and Queer Exuberance; Or, My Five Years on the Market." Journal of Asian American Studies 25, no. 2 (2022): 297-306. doi:10.1353/jaas.2022.0024
I am so grateful to have read Doug’s words this weekend, just as the job market season is ramping up. He has managed to capture the feeling of being a person in a full-time academic position with benefits, but one that is still precarious—a position somewhere in between being an adjunct and a tenure-track professor. Out of his article emerges the term “ambivalent contingency” as a way of reframing our relationship to the job market as one that makes transparent our recognition of the academy’s limitations in hiring. Doug’s vulnerability in writing and sharing his story of precarity is so incredibly beautiful, and is so thoroughly theorized.
This piece is part of the 25th anniversary issue of the Journal of Asian American Studies, which consists of articles that speak to the state of the field and its relationship to activism, the university, and the public. It feels so validating, then, to see his professional story (so similar to mine) be acknowledged and recognized as an important part of the conversation. We think alongside one another in terms of the issues that we research, but it feels new to have such a frank conversation being had about our careers within the academy and our professional development.
Peña, Lorgia García. Community as Rebellion: A Syllabus for Surviving Academia as a Woman of Color. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2022.
Similarly to Doug’s article, this recent publication from Lorgia García Peña is critical for anyone in the academy to read. A big thank you to my friend Hannah W. for telling me about the book and letting me borrow her copy! 💓 Written during the pandemic in the wake of her tenure denial from Harvard, this book speaks to the experiences of many women of color and students of color in the academy—the way in which our subject-positions fulfill the university’s need to show diversity and inclusion, while also being the very elements that deny space, humanity, and legitimacy to us and our work (particularly those that work within the field of ethnic studies). More than that, Peña offers us strategies for thinking and pushing back in community—for reframing our academic allies as accomplices in the pursuit of doing work that does work in our world for the better.
🌀 Still consuming.
Labor day vibes above.
From Eva Recinos: 5 books that have impacted her writing life
Tips for when you don’t have a daily routine (which is a-ok!)
An interesting resource for language guidance around sensitive topics
📖 Book club corner.
It’s time to vote for our September book club pick! Choose what book you want to read for September, and our meeting details follow:
Here’s the event info:
Date & Time: Tuesday, September 27 @ 5PM PST/8PM EST
Registration Link!
Suggested Donation (for those able to donate): $3-10 through Paypal or Venmo (@idyalz)
If you are interested in facilitating a book club and have been to more than two book club meetings, feel free to reach out to me!
You can learn more about the tiny driver book club here!
🐶 A pup-date.
Girlie is loving her new dog bed:
As always, thanks so much for reading through, and I'll see you in the next one!
Warmly,
Ida