Nothing is normal and you’re angry, scared, exhausted…on repeat every day. Karen and Kel talk about our new emotional landscape and accepting where you are right now, in the face of so much suffering and fear. Whatever you’re doing: it’s enough.
Dr. Deana Dartt, Founder and Principal of Live Oak Consulting, PhD in Anthropology and Museum Studies, and enrolled member of the Coastal Band of the Chumash Nation, joins us today for a conversation about the ways that racism and anti-indigeneity shape PhD training as well as the tenure track career, especially in Anthropology. Delving into shared memories of a contentious social theory graduate seminar, Deana, Karen and Kel unpack the ways that white supermacy is imposed in classroom interactions and what level of challenges are possible. Deana also shares the anti-settler-colonialist interventions she is making through her museum consulting around the kinds of structural and policy changes necessary to responsibly handle Native artifacts and resources. ...
Recorded the day after the Breonna Taylor verdict was announced, this episode talks about productivity. if you can’t get your work done right now, it’s ok. If you CAN work, why can you work? Why are white people so “ok” in the face of this anti-blackness? And more broadly, who does productivity serve? Karen and Kel talk about the dangers of chasing belonging in a system that despite its gaslighting stories about itself, does not exist to save or protect or nurture you. ...
We dig into the definition of “professionalism,” a term thrown around as an arbiter of correct and incorrect behavior in academia. Drawing from insights on a recent Twitter thread, Karen and Kel talk about how professionalism operates as code for the protection of white (male, straight, cisgender) comfort – quiet, sedate, nonconfrontational, bodies contained and […] ...
