The Academic Life

Today’s book is: Black Woman on Board: Claudia Hampton, the California State University, and the Fight to Save Affirmative Action (University of Rochester Press, 2024) by Dr. Donna J. Nicol, which examines the leadership strategies that Black women educators have employed as influential power brokers in predominantly white colleges and universities in the United States. Black Woman on Board tells...

Why do we assume that computers always get it right? Today’s book is: Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World (MIT Press, 2019), in which Professor Meredith Broussard argues that our collective enthusiasm for applying computer technology to every aspect of life has resulted in a tremendous amount of poorly designed systems. We are so eager to do everything digitally—hiring...

Today’s book is: Immigration Realities: Challenging Common Misperceptions (Columbia UP, 2024), by Ernesto Castaneda and Carina Cione, which is a practical, evidence-based primer on immigrants and immigration. Each chapter debunks a frequently encountered claim and answers common questions. Presenting the latest findings and decades of interdisciplinary research in an accessible way, Dr. Castañeda...

Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about publishing but were too afraid to ask. Before and After the Book Deal: A Writer’s Guide to Finishing, Publishing, Promoting, and Surviving Your First Book (Catapult, 2020) by Courtney Maum is a funny, candid guide about breaking into the marketplace. Cutting through the noise, dispelling rumors and remaining positive, Before and After the Book Deal answ...

Alexandra Chan thinks she has life figured out until, in the Year of the Ram, the death of her father—her last parent—brings her to her knees, an event seemingly foretold in Chinese mythology. Today’s book is: In The Garden Behind the Moon: A Memoir of Loss, Myth, and Magic (Flashpoint Books, 2024), by Dr. Alexandra Chan, who is a left-brained archaeologist and successful tiger daughter. But she f...

You Will Get Through This: A Mental Health First-Aid Kit- Help for Depression, Anxiety, Grief, and More (Experiment, 2024) was written by three practicing therapists to serve as a tool kit. Drawing on the techniques the book’s authors Julie Radico, Nicole Halverson and Charity O’Reilly use with their own clients, You Will Get Through This offers a holistic understanding of more than twenty common...

Have you been told your draft isn’t ready yet, because you still need to find your argument? We have all gotten that feedback at some point. But what we haven’t been told is how to find our argument. Today we return to The Dissertation-to-Book Workbook: Exercises for Developing and Revising Your Book Manuscript (U Chicago Press, 2023), with Dr. Katelyn E. Knox and Dr. Allison Van Deventer, to lear...

Schuyler Bailar didn’t set out to be an activist, but his very public transition to the Harvard men’s swim team put him in the spotlight. His choice to be open about his journey and share his experience has evolved into tireless advocacy for inclusion and collective liberation. Today’s book is: He/She/They: How We Talk About Gender and Why it Matters (Hachette, 2023), by Schuyler Bailar, which giv...

When professor jobs are scarce and most academic jobs are temporary, what do you do if you still want to work on a campus? Can you make the leap to admin? How do you make the leap? Dr. Jacquelyn Ardam joins us to explain the hidden curriculum of the academic job market. She shares what helped her pivot roles from visiting professor to campus administrator, how research and writing are still a mean...

How do public markets, as ordinary as they seem, carry the weight of a city’s history? How do such everyday buildings reflect a city’s changing political, social, and economic needs, through their yearslong transformations in forms, functions, and management? Today’s book is: Everyday Architecture in Context: Public Markets in Hong Kong, 1842-1981 (Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, 2023), by...

How do you turn a dissertation into a book? Today’s book is: The Dissertation-to-Book Workbook: Exercises for Developing and Revising Your Book Manuscript (U Chicago Press, 2023), by Dr. Katelyn E. Knox and Dr. Allison Van Deventer, which offers a series of manageable, concrete steps and exercises to help you revise your academic manuscript into a book. The Dissertation-to-Book Workbook offers cle...

Today’s book is: Freeman’s Challenge: The Murder That Shook America’s Original Prison for Profit (U Chicago Press, 2024), by Dr. Robin Bernstein, which tells the story of a teenager named William Freeman. Convicted of a horse theft he insisted he did not commit, he was sentenced to five years of hard labor in Auburn’s new prison. Uniting incarceration and capitalism, the facility included industri...

Watching the footage of the January 6 insurrection, Professor Bradley Onishi wondered: If I hadn't left evangelicalism, would I have been there? Today’s book is: Preparing for War: The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism—and What Comes Next (Broadleaf Books, 2023), by Dr. Bradley Onishi, which unpacks recent U.S. history to show how the insurrection at the United States Capitol on Jan...

Have you had that dream—the one where you just leave academia? You quit your job, sell all your stuff, and board a plane for somewhere far, far away. But what happens once you land? Dr. Anne Boyd Rioux shares how she left her job in Louisiana and landed in Paris. She explains the steps of establishing a life abroad: working online; exploring new landscapes; frequently repacking suitcases; finding...

Today’s book is: We Take Our Cities With Us (Ohio State UP, 2022), by Sorayya Khan. After her mother’s death, Sorayya Khan confronts her grief by revisiting their relationship, her parents’ lives, and her own Pakistani-Dutch heritage in a multicultural memoir that unfolds over seven cities and three continents. We Take Our Cities with Us ushers us from Khan’s childhood independence forged at her g...

An increasing number of students worldwide attend graduate school while simultaneously navigating a variety of competing responsibilities in their personal lives. For many students, this includes both parenting and working full-time, while maintaining a rigorous graduate course-load. Because academia overwhelmingly defaults to assuming all graduate students’ needs are similar to those of middle-cl...

Today’s book is: More Than A Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender, and Ability Bias in Tech (MIT Press, 2024), by Meredith Broussard. When technology reinforces inequality, it's not just a glitch—it's a signal that we need to redesign our systems to create a more equitable world. The word “glitch” implies an incidental error, as easy to patch up as it is to identify. But what if racism, sexism, and ab...

Today’s book is: The Artist’s Joy: A Guide to Getting Unstuck, Embracing Imperfection, and Loving Your Creative Life (Broadleaf Books, 2024), by Dr. Merideth Hite Estevez, which is the ultimate guide for creatives. Whether you are a dabbler, a career creative, or a long-time self-proclaimed "tortured artist," The Artist’s Joy is here to help. As a professional oboist, teacher, and creative coach,...

What makes Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) uniquely Latinx? And how can university leaders, staff, and faculty transform these institutions into spaces that promote racial equity, social justice, and collective liberation? Today’s book is: Transforming Hispanic-Serving Institutions for Equity and Justice (Johns Hopkins UP, 2023), by Dr. Gina Ann Garcia. In it, Dr. Garcia argues that in order...

Today’s book is: The Translator’s Daughter: A Memoir (Mad Creek Books, 2024), by Grace Loh Prasad, which is a unique immigration story about the loneliness of living in a diaspora, the search for belonging, and the meaning of home. Born in Taiwan, Grace Loh Prasad was two years old when the threat of political persecution under Chiang Kai-shek’s dictatorship drove her family to the United States,...

Today’s book is: At Every Depth: Our Growing Knowledge of the Changing Oceans (Columbia UP, 2024), by Tessa Hill and Eric Simons, which takes readers beneath the waves and along the coasts, to explore how climate change and environmental degradation have spurred the most radical transformations in human history. The world’s oceans are changing at a drastic pace. In response, the people who know th...

Book bans and book challenges are both on the rise. And they are increasing at unprecedented rates. But why is this happening? Dr. Christine Emeran of the National Coalition Against Censorship joins us to explore what’s driving censorship movements nationwide. In today’s episode, she takes us through politically organized efforts to ban books, and shares the statistics of book challenges and bans....

Today’s book is: Leading From the Margins: College Leadership from Unexpected Places (Johns Hopkins UP, 2024), by Dr. Mary Dana Hinton, which is a guide to why people from marginalized backgrounds may be uniquely qualified to become effective higher education leaders―and how they can get there. Students and faculty in higher education increasingly reflect more diverse backgrounds, but this diversi...

Today’s book is: Stitching Freedom: Embroidery and Incarceration (Common Threads Press, 2024), by Dr. Isabella Rosner, which considers how for centuries, people have stitched in good times and in bad, finding strength in the needle moving in and out of fabric. Stitching Freedom explores the embroidery made in prisons and mental health hospitals — those who have embroidered to distract, to reflect...

Today’s book is: The Things We Didn’t Know (Gallery Books, 2024), by Dr. Elba Iris Pérez’s. A cross-cultural coming-of-age story, The Things We Didn’t Know is inspired by the author’s own experiences growing up between Woronoco, Massachusetts, and Puerto Rico. It explores Andrea Rodríguez’s childhood between Puerto Rico and a small Massachusetts factory town. Andrea Rodríguez is nine years old whe...