Avsnitt
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For the final episode of season 6, we turn the mic over to newly minted Ph.D., Dr. Dani Magsumbol and fellow grad student and friend, Tka Pinnock! We're calling this, Academic Ate, where "ate" means "big sister" in Tagalog. They talk about the journey it took to get to the Ph.D. defence, the deep value of community, and what it means to have good mentorship.
Enjoy this final episode and see you back in the Fall!
Thanks for listening! Get more information, support the show, and read all the transcripts at academicaunties.com. Get in touch with Academic Aunties on BlueSky, Instagram, or by e-mail at [email protected].
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The disjuncture between the stated goals of equity, diversity, and inclusion policies and their application has long been a theme we've covered on the pod. This week, we continue this conversation with Dr. Sabreena Ghaffar-Siddiqui, co-author of the book, DEI Undone: The Rise, Fall and Rebirth of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion alongside Dr. Ardavan Eizadirad. Sabreena is an anti-imperialist, decolonial scholar, sociologist, and public intellectual who has worked at the centre of Canada's DEI industry and was forced out from her institution after speaking up for Palestine. In our conversation today, we talk about the death of DEI, building community and how doing otherwise is always possible.
Get DEI Undone today!
Thanks for listening! Get more information, support the show, and read all the transcripts at academicaunties.com. Get in touch with Academic Aunties on BlueSky, Instagram, or by e-mail at [email protected].
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Saknas det avsnitt?
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Higher education is under attack. Programs shut down in response to fascist attacks, faculty being fired for taking political stances, and being forced to do more and more for less and less. These are just a few reminders that academia is not a calling. We are, in fact, academic labourers. And at the forefront of the battles we are increasingly asked to fight are academic labour unions.
On this episode, we talk with Dr. Anna Meier, a full-time labour organizer who works with higher education unions in the Boston area. We talk about why unions are important, her journey pivoting away from an academic job to being an organizer, common misconceptions about unions, and why even within our unions, there are battles to be fought.
Related Links
Anna Meier on Blue SkyThanks for listening! Get more information, support the show, and read all the transcripts at academicaunties.com. Get in touch with Academic Aunties on BlueSky, Instagram, or by e-mail at [email protected].
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This week we talk to Academic Aunties producer extraordinaire, Dr. Nisha Nath and her co-authors, Dr. Rita Kaur Dhamoon, Dr. Anita Girvan and Dr. Davina Bhandar about their new book, The Letters: Institutional Lives and EDI. It's an amazing work, going deep on a lot of the themes that you hear about a lot on this podcast.
Here's what I said about the book when I was given the honour of providing a review:
“Breathtaking, brilliant, creative, enraging, heartfelt, joyful, powerful, and wise, The Letters is testament to the importance of ‘writing our lives’ and ‘right-ing our lives’ within and against the neoliberal, EDI’ university. The authors unflinchingly demonstrate the corrosive damages that universities inflict while also capturing the subversive power of collective witnessing, dissident friendships, and doing otherwise in these spaces. It is a work of profound theoretical heft that I also see as a love letter to its readers: not only does it give us a way to process, metabolize and understand painful encounters in our academic lives that have harmed us, it is also a reminder that amid the many instances of institutional cruelty that we might have witnessed and lived through, other worlds remain possible.”
Listeners - go buy this book today!
Thanks for listening! Get more information, support the show, and read all the transcripts at academicaunties.com. Get in touch with Academic Aunties on BlueSky, Instagram, or by e-mail at [email protected].
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For this episode of the podcast, we tackle writing, writing retreats, and why writing can be, and probably should be, a community-based practice. Last month I went on a writing intensive workshop and retreat, and I recorded a few voice memos documenting my time. Academic Aunties producer, Dr. Nisha Nath joins us on the podcast and we reflect on the importance of creating space away from everyday life to think, to write, and to reflect.
Thanks for listening! Get more information, support the show, and read all the transcripts at academicaunties.com. Get in touch with Academic Aunties on BlueSky, Instagram, or by e-mail at [email protected].
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With how abysmal the world is right now, we have probably all felt frustration that our political leaders are, at best, oblivious to our everyday concerns, and at worse, are actively trying to make our lives worse. But how many of us, when looking at all of the problems our world is facing right now, would choose to throw our hats in the ring and run for office?
This week, we talk about one of those remarkable community and civically-minded leaders who isn't afraid of this challenge. Veronica Javier, who I've known for almost 20 years now, is a community organizer and an adjunct faculty member at York University School of Social Work. Veronica is one of those tireless people who uses her voice to speak truth to power, to advocate for communities, and to strategize on ways to change systems to support underserved folks.
We talk about what made her decide to take the leap and run for office and how she's truly trying to center care and community in in her forays into this world.
Related Links
Veronica Javier for Scarborough SouthwestThanks for listening! Get more information, support the show, and read all the transcripts at academicaunties.com. Get in touch with Academic Aunties on BlueSky, Instagram, or by e-mail at [email protected].
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This week, we are SO excited to talk to Uzma Jalaluddin about her new book, Moonlight Murder! This is the latest instalment in her amazing Detective Aunty series. In our conversation we talk about her love for Agatha Christie, writing, why Scarborough is a hotbed of amazing writers and artists and why Kausar Khan is the anti-heroine we have all been waiting for.
After you listen to this episode, make sure you buy Moonlight Murder from a bookstore near you!
Thanks for listening! Get more information, support the show, and read all the transcripts at academicaunties.com. Get in touch with Academic Aunties on BlueSky, Instagram, or by e-mail at [email protected].
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This episode is a long time coming for us. We're tackling perimenopause and menopause. On this episode we talk about the reality of going through perimenopause and menopause in the context of capitalism, a culture of celebrity, the continual erosion of robust public healthcare and medical racism.
We talk to Dr. Robin Turner, Associate Professor of Political Science at Butler University and Academic Aunties producer, Dr. Nisha Nath, Associate Professor of Equity Studies at Athabasca University.
Related Links
The Black Girl's Guide to Surviving MenopauseA Letter to My Future Self in a Time of Undoing by Omisade Burney-ScottWhat Fresh Hell Is This? Perimenopause, Menopause, Other Indignities, and You by Heather CorinnaHeat Is Not a Metaphor by Alexis Pauline GumbsThanks for listening! Get more information, support the show, and read all the transcripts at academicaunties.com. Get in touch with Academic Aunties on BlueSky, Instagram, or by e-mail at [email protected].
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The most important decision that grad students have to make is who to work with as their supervisor. A common joke in grad school is that graduate student-supervisor relationships outlast many marriages. Your choice of supervisor helps determine the trajectory of your graduate and postgraduate careers with supervisors.
So on this episode we talk about what its like to be a supervisor. What to expect, how to be ethical, and what its like to be supervisors as racialized faculty. Joining us is Dr. Nhung Tran, Associate Professor of History at the University of Toronto.
Related Links
Nature article on "shadow supervision"Thanks for listening! Get more information, support the show, and read all the transcripts at academicaunties.com. Get in touch with Academic Aunties on BlueSky, Instagram, or by e-mail at [email protected].
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A few weeks ago my eldest daughter turned 10. It's so incredibly hard to believe because of how truly how fast did time flew. Thinking back 10 years ago, it was an incredibly chaotic time. I had interviewed for a job without knowing I was pregnant. Then after I received my offer, I had to navigate across country move. Then I gave birth a month after starting my faculty position at York. It was a time of trying to parent, teach, write, and research all at the same time.
And yet, despite these moments of intense stress, there were also so many moments of pure joy. When my daughter was born, my dad was still with us, so seeing him and my mom turn into doting grandparents and my partner turned into a dad was a gift. Being rooted in family and appreciating the life we have right now is something that I always try to remember to do.
Going down memory lane has made me think about how are other academic parents doing right now. What is it like to both parent and do your PhD? What decisions did you have to make to do both? How do you organize your family life and your time? What does care work look like? And honestly, how do we parent today in fascist times to answer these questions?
To answer these question, I immediately thought of Dr. Jenna Nassiri. Jenna recently finished her PhD in anthropology at York University and writes so thoughtfully and powerfully about care. She is also the mom of a 2-year-old and can speak to what it's like both doing your PhD and parenting.
Thanks for listening! Get more information, support the show, and read all the transcripts at academicaunties.com. Get in touch with Academic Aunties on BlueSky, Instagram, or by e-mail at [email protected].
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On part 2 of Coming Home, we continue our conversation with Professors Mariam Georgia and Eisenstein Staats-Pangowish about what it means when our work is deeply tied to our homelands. This week, we talk about what home means, how we need to unlearn colonial ways of teaching, and the arrogance of western colonial academia. We also talk about why our commitments to this work drives us to teach differently and the ways we attempt to decolonize the classroom.
Thanks for listening! Get more information, support the show, and read all the transcripts at academicaunties.com. Get in touch with Academic Aunties on BlueSky, Instagram, or by e-mail at [email protected].
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Last summer, I had an opportunity to return home to the Philippines. It was a bittersweet homecoming. I returned in part because my family and I needed to sort out my dad's estate, but it was also joyful homecoming because I reunited with family and community. Being able to be home where I heard my language spoken everywhere, where I understood cultural scripts was a relief.
But as I reflect on going home, I realize the tremendous privilege I have in being able to do so many of our friends live in exile, where going home is no longer possible. Many are witnessing imperial plunder take place in their lands, as in the case of colleagues in Venezuela, and find that going home is especially fraught, if not altogether impossible. And yet others see research on their homes as being tied to larger political projects, a commitment to escape scholarly erasure, and to recuperate lost histories.
Yet the way academia functions is that these complex emotions engendered by going home is not openly acknowledged. Something that many of us know is that the university can be profoundly inhospitable to how we take up these lineages, especially if we are insisting that our connections to home ground innate important knowledges.
And it is also the case that when it comes to academics, especially outsider academics, researching our homes can also be sources of colonial damage. Academics often treat our homes as their research playgrounds, where they suddenly become experts who know more than us.
So in this two part series, I chat about home with two of my favourite people, Dr. Mariam Georgis, and Professor Esentsei Staats-Pangowish.
Thanks for listening! Get more information, support the show, and read all the transcripts at academicaunties.com. Get in touch with Academic Aunties on BlueSky, Instagram, or by e-mail at [email protected].
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We're just weeks into 2026, but it is already messed up. US imperial attacks on Venezuela, the ICE raids across the US and Renee Good’s murder, the kidnapping of activist Chantal Anicoche by the Armed Forces of the Philippines, continued Israeli attacks in Gaza...it's been a lot.
So why are we talking this week about Heated Rivalry, the unexpected hit TV show from Crave and HBO about two hockey superstars who embark on a decade-long secret relationship despite being the faces of an intense hockey rivalry?
How can we possibly be thinking about a TV show amidst the fascist hellfire all around us?
To be honest I was initially hesitant about releasing this conversation in this exact moment.
But on reflection, I realized that maybe the overwhelmingly positive response to Heated Rivalry these past few weeks-an excitement and energy that I definitely felt-says something about what we are yearning for right now. When talking to friends about Heated Rivalry, I realize that we are seeking tenderness. Community. Love. Connection. In a world where we have elected leaders who are the antithesis of these very values, and where many of us feel real deep despair, stories like Heated Rivalry allow us to be part of a world where our only concern - for that 30 to 40 minute episode - is to be immersed in a love story. And not just any love story. But one that dares to dream that love can thrive in the face of a world that is deeply homophobic and anti-queer. Maybe this show is resonating not in spite of this awful political moment we find ourselves in, but because of it.
So I’m happy to bring you the conversation I had recently with my good friend and previous guest on the pod, Dr. JP Catungal. We talk about JP’s creation of a Heated Rivalry syllabus, which addresses hockey culture, queer Asian representation, homonationalism, and much more. We also talk about the academic impulse to intellectualize things, fandom, and neurodivergence.
Related Links
JP's Heated Rivalry SyllabusThanks for listening! Get more information, support the show, and read all the transcripts at academicaunties.com. Get in touch with Academic Aunties on BlueSky, Instagram, or by e-mail at [email protected].
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(Audio fixed)
In our last episode for 2025, we welcome back the OG auntie, Dr. Rita Dhamoon, and Academic Aunties producer, Dr. Nisha Nath for the latest instalment of our year-end conversation, Academic Aunties After Hours. It's been quite a year, but it's always wonderful to think about what inspired us, what vexed us, and what gave us joy.
Hope you enjoy this conversation, and we'll see you in January!
Thanks for listening! Get more information, support the show, and read all the transcripts at academicaunties.com. Get in touch with Academic Aunties on BlueSky, Instagram, or by e-mail at [email protected].
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In academia you are constantly making compromises. In my time, there have been numerous instances when I've found myself having to make compromises, prioritizing academic expectations over family and community. Times where I have to hustle hard, forgoing time with my young kids just to try to get tenure. I even remember writing my PhD dissertation, seeking to ground it in community centered knowledges and being told that academic conventions necessitate legibility, which means citing, analyzing and writing in a way that faculty members could understand.
On this week's episode, we speak to Dr. Tari Ajadi, a longtime community activist researcher, and a good friend. He completed his PhD in Political Science at Dalhousie University, a journey which you'll learn more about in our conversation.
We talk about the seeing academia for what it is, and how sometimes leaving is what we need to do in order to live a more fully realized life.
Thanks for listening! Get more information, support the show, and read all the transcripts at academicaunties.com. Get in touch with Academic Aunties on BlueSky, Instagram, or by e-mail at [email protected].
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There are many so-called truths in academia. One of them is the belief that academia is a calling, and that you have to relinquish everything for your career. Even if it means leaving everything behind, taking you away from family and support systems.
On this episode, we challenge this truth with our guest, Dr. Jessica Ticar, an Assistant Professor of Social Work at Algoma University. We talk about her journey and the hard decision she had to make to leave her academic job to support family, without knowing how it would turn out. And we also talk about listening to the cues that our bodies tell us, even before our minds are aware, that we might be in a toxic environment and have to leave.
Thanks for listening! Get more information, support the show, and read all the transcripts at academicaunties.com. Get in touch with Academic Aunties on BlueSky, Instagram, or by e-mail at [email protected].
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Academia likes to put people into a box. The pressure to stay within disciplinary boundaries is strong. For those who reject these disciplinary regimes, this can be felt personally, with gatekeepers discouraging this kind of scholarship at every opportunity.
On this week's episode, we talk to Dr. Aadita Chaudhury, who just finished a PhD in Science and Technology Studies from York University, about these dynamics. We talk about pursuing scholarship that colours outside the lines and the importance of community to carry the load.
Thanks for listening! Get more information, support the show, and read all the transcripts at academicaunties.com. Get in touch with Academic Aunties on BlueSky, Instagram, or by e-mail at [email protected].
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For many of our listeners, and certainly in conversations among friends, we talk about how one of the most dangerous figures we've encountered within the university are nice white women, and I don't use the word dangerous lightly. A lot has been written about the exaltation of white womanhood and especially the collusion of white women in settler colonialism, imperialism, and more.
This happens in all sorts of institutions, and of course in academia. Tears, gaslighting, gatekeeping, civility, appropriation, extraction, exploitation. All of these done with a smile and under the banner of care. These are all things that come to my mind when thinking about the ways in which nice white women can be such an obstruction to the flourishing of so many of our listeners.
Our guest this week is well positioned to talk through these dynamics. Dr. Willow-Samara Allen is an Associate Professor at Royal Roads University. Her research examines reproductions and disruptions of settler colonial socialization in public sector work, antiracist and anticolonial pedagogies and methods for critical adult learning and collaborative leadership, as well as the subject-re/making and complicities of white settler women, and the micro socio-political spaces of multiracial families.
Thanks for listening! Get more information, support the show, and read all the transcripts at academicaunties.com. Get in touch with Academic Aunties on BlueSky, Instagram, or by e-mail at [email protected].
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In academia, it's taboo to be unserious. Not here, though, at Academic Aunties. On today's episode, we show that we can be good academics and also like unserious things by diving deep into one of my guilty pleasures, The Summer I Turned Pretty, streaming on Amazon Prime.
The show, despite supposedly having a target audience of tweens and teens, became so popular among my demographic of 30+ and 40+ cynical academic women. What is it about the show that we love? What did we think about the contrived plot points? Why were so many of us wringing our hands at the main character, Belly?
We get into it with my friend, Dr. Nicole De Silva, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Concordia University.
Thanks for listening! Get more information, support the show, and read all the transcripts at academicaunties.com. Get in touch with Academic Aunties on BlueSky, Instagram, or by e-mail at [email protected].
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Season 6 premiere!
We've just started the school year and I'm realizing that I am already stressed. How can this be? The year literally just started!
My goal this year was to slow down, to take it easy and to not lose sight of my health. But it's so hard to do when it seems like all the good things that we love about universities and colleges are being taken away. And it seems like the neoliberal academy loves nothing more than to take us away from teaching and researching, and instead imposing upon us increasing amountos of paperwork, heaps of ever escalating fear mongering about AI that require ridiculous regulations that are designed to reveal students, and mounting pressures to increase enrollment because didn't, you know, we have a budget crisis and so on and so on.
That's why I found this week's conversation so refreshing. This week we talk to Dr. Carrianne Leung, a fiction writer and assistant professor at the University of Guelph in Creative Writing. We talk about how her winding non-traditional path into academia gives her a refreshing perspective about the energy she chooses to bring into the classroom, how she views her relationship with her students, including teaching in the age of AI and why we should all slow down and not hustle so hard.
Related Links
Carrianne Leung's WebsiteThanks for listening! Get more information, support the show, and read all the transcripts at academicaunties.com. Get in touch with Academic Aunties on BlueSky, Instagram, or by e-mail at [email protected].
- Visa fler
