The trouble with academia is, you set out to master a field but you end up demanding perfection of yourself, forgetting that perfection is not possible. Real mastery is not an outcome but a process, ie, embracing continual curiosity and being unafraid to confront what you don’t know to open the door to learning more. Karen and Kel talk about recovering this beginner’s curiosity by asking: Who is the inner/outer critic telling you you’re not good enough, and remembering that no external validation will make you achieve “perfection” -especially when the systems of validation are racist, sexist, classist, and exclusionary. As Toni Morrison says: the goal of racism is distraction. In the end, you can say this: I don’t have prove it to you I just have to deliver it.
Karen and Kel talk about the things that make a problematic advisor: 1) poor boundaries; 2) excessive molding; 3) forgetting humanity, and 4) not...
In the cataclysm of COVID19 and temporary or permanent closure of lines, programs, and whole institutions, academics at every stage, from grad school through...
You didn’t get the job this year; what to do? Kel and I talk through what makes a competitive record and competitive presentation of...