PhDivas

Good luck with the start of another academic year: you are not alone. Mental health is often falsely presented as irrelevant to people of colour. Dr. Samara Linton and Dr. Rianna Walcott's brilliant The Colour of Madness explores mental health for and by people of colour across art, essays, poetry, and stories. Together with PhDiva Xine they discuss bridging the STEM/humanities divide through their collaboration and the uses of the book to communities, teaching, and health care professionals. The Colour of Madness https://linktr.ee/TheColourofMadness https://www.instagram.com/colourofmadness/?hl=en https://twitter.com/madnesscolourof?lang=en Support PhDivas on Patreon: www.patreon.com/phdivaspodcast Dr Samara Linton (she/her) is an award-winning writer, researcher, and multidisciplinary content producer. Her work includes The Colour of Madness: Mental Health and Race in Technicolour (2022) and Diane Abbott: The Authorised Biography (2020). Samara writes for various publications, including gal-dem, Huffington Post UK, The Metro, New Economics Foundation, Fawcett Society, and the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Her published research includes an influential report on Ebola-affected communities for the Africa All-Party Parliamentary Group (2016). She also sat on the editorial board for the British Medical Journal's award-winning Racism in Medicine special issue (2020). Samara worked as a junior doctor in east London before joining the BBC, where she worked in production. A University of Cambridge (BA Hons.) and University College London (MBBS) graduate, she is currently completing an MA in Health Humanities at University College London. You can find out more about Samara's work at www.samaralinton.com, and she tweets at @samara_linton. Rianna Walcott (she/her) is an LAHP alumna and PhD candidate at Kings College London researching Black British identity formation in digital spaces. Rianna combines digital work, decolonial studies, arts and culture, and mental health advocacy in her work, with a deep commitment to outreach work and public engagement. She co-founded projectmyopia.com, a website that promotes inclusivity in academia and a decolonized curriculum, and is the UCL writing lab's Scholar-in-Residence for 21-22. Rianna frequently writes about race, feminism, mental health, and arts and culture for publications including The Wellcome Collection, The Metro, The Guardian, The BBC, Vice, and Dazed. Rianna is co-editor of an anthology about BAME mental health - The Colour of Madness (2022), and in the time left over, she moonlights as a professional jazz singer. Rianna will be based at The Black Communication and Technology (BCaT) Lab at the University of Maryland-College Park. Research at this new lab will focus on race and technology, as well as the development of a pipeline program to introduce undergraduates and those in the wider community to the field of Black digital studies with the aim of working toward a more equitable digital future. You can find out more about Rianna's work at www.riannawalcott.com, and she tweets at @rianna_walcott.

Adversity and the power of friendship! In the second half of the interview, PhDiva Xine talks with historian Cassie Osei about pedagogy during the pandemic and life lessons from Sailor Moon. Do you watch anime? How does it affect how you engage in the world? For show notes see our blogpost: https://phdivaspodcast.wordpress.com/2022/07/11/s6e9-pandemic-pedagogy-sailor-moon-solidarity-w-dr-cassie-osei/ Support PhDivas on Patreon: www.patreon.com/phdivaspodcast Dr. Cassie Osei (she/hers) is a historian of Latin America and African diaspora. She earned her PhD in History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2022. She specializes in modern Brazilian history through the lens of race, class, and gender. Dr. Osei was a 2019 – 2020 Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad fellow in São Paulo, Brazil. Beginning August 2022, she will be an Assistant Professor of History at Bucknell University. Where to find Cassie: Grad profile: history.illinois.edu/directory/profile/cosei2 Twitter: @tropigalia IG: @brasilianista Blog: tropigalia.net

Wherever they are, Black women have always theorized about race and gender, says Dr. Cassie Osei. In the first of two eps, PhDiva Xine interviews Cassie Osei, historian of Afro-Brazilian women's history, longtime PhDivas Podcast listener, and newly minted PhDiva (!). Cassie talks about archival methodologies, Black feminist theorizing beyond the US, and about the personal importance of what she playfully refers to as 'low femme theory.' For show notes see our blog post: https://phdivaspodcast.wordpress.com/2022/05/27/s6e8-afro-brazilian-womens-history-low-femme-theory-with-dr-cassie-osei/ Support PhDivas on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/phdivaspodcast Dr. Cassie Osei (she/hers) is a historian of Latin America and African diaspora. She earned her PhD in History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2022. She specializes in modern Brazilian history through the lens of race, class, and gender. Dr. Osei was a 2019 – 2020 Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad fellow in São Paulo, Brazil. Beginning August 2022, she will be an Assistant Professor of History at Bucknell University. Where to find Cassie: Grad profile: https://history.illinois.edu/directory/profile/cosei2 Twitter: @tropigalia IG: @brasilianista Blog: https://tropigalia.net

Let's talk about feelings, unfeelings, boundaries, and emotional labour! How do we build solidarities beyond what Black feminist Audre Lorde calls 'the master's house'? In part 2, PhDiva Liz chats to Xine about her book Disaffected and how her own positionality as a Chinese diasporic queer person led to how she navigates a feminist approach to feeling and unfeeling that is mindful of comparative racialization. They talk about 19th-century anti-Asian and anti-Black racisms alongside their own experiences of these racisms today. How do we build solidarity? How do we avoid the exploitation of our emotional resources? What kind of work can we do if we recognize -- and are critical about -- all research is secretly 'me-search'? Support us on Patreon! www.patreon.com/phdivaspodcast DISAFFECTED won the Duke UP Scholars of Color First Book Prize. For a 30% discount use the code E21YAO on the following sites North America: www.dukeupress.edu/disaffected UK, Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific: www.combinedacademic.co.uk/97814780148…isaffected/ You can read the intro for free here: www.dukeupress.edu/disaffected

So much and yet so little has changed for women of colour since the 19th century... PhDivas Liz and Xine discuss Xine's first book DISAFFECTED. Xine shares the challenges of writing a monograph (a fancy academic term for research book). Chapter 4 is kind of an homage to Liz: it discusses Black feminist approaches to STEM in the nineteenth century by analyzing a novel by a major Black woman writer alongside the writings of the first two Black American women to receive medical degrees. Liz and Xine delve into the everyday life strategies of disaffection, care, and uncaring that persist in the archive and in our everyday lives. Support us on Patreon! www.patreon.com/phdivaspodcast DISAFFECTED won the Duke UP Scholars of Color First Book Prize. For a 30% discount use the code E21YAO on the following sites North America: www.dukeupress.edu/disaffected UK, Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific: https://www.combinedacademic.co.uk/9781478014836/disaffected/ You can read the intro for free here: www.dukeupress.edu/disaffected

If the master's tools can never dismantle the master's house, what can we build instead? Since emotional labour is racialized and gendered, what if minoritized people say 'no'? Listen to several brilliant WOC scholars discuss PhDiva Xine's new book DISAFFECTED: each of them was given a chapter of the book to respond to in order to give the audience a sense of the overall argument as well as a chance for each scholar to discuss their own research. 170+ people attended from around the world! 0:00 to 6:15 Xine's overview of the event and Christine Okoth's introduction 6:15 to 26:50 Xine reads a section of DISAFFECTED's argument 26:51 to 38 Chapter 1: white sentimentalism, unsympathetic Blackness, and Herman Melville's Benito Cereno Respondent: Christine A Okoth (King's College London) is working on a brilliant manuscript that will revolutionize ecocriticism: _Race and the Raw Material: Black Aesthetics as Extractive Form_ 38:10 to 53:04 Chapter 2: on Black-Indigenous counterintimacies, science, and global revolution in Martin R. Delany's work Respondent: Rianna Walcott (King's College London) who researches Black women's identity formation in digital spaces. She co-founded projectmyopia.com which promotes inclusion in academia and decolonised curriculums. She co-edited The Colour of Madness, an anthology about BAME mental health. www.riannawalcott.com and @rianna_walcott on Twitter 53:05 to 1:02:35 Chapter 3: on queer frigidity, medical science, the limits of white feminism, and the subgenre of (white) women doctor novels Respondent: Lara Choksey (UCL) who works on STS, critical race and decolonial studies with particular interest in speculative fiction. She is the author of Narrative in the Age of the Genome: Genetic Worlds (Bloomsbury 2021). https://www.bloomsbury.com/.../narrative-in-the-age-of.../ 1:03:50 to 1:13:35 Chapter 4: on Black women doctors, transformative love, and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper's Iola Leroy Respondent: Jade Bentil (Oxford) is a Black feminist historian whose first book REBEL CITIZEN uses oral history interviews to explore the lived experiences of Black women who migrated to Britain after WW2. Forthcoming from Allen Lane. https://www.jadebentil.com/ 1:13:31 to 1:26:25 Chp 5: Oriental inscrutability, Chinese diaspora, the first Asian North American woman writer Sui Sin Far Respondent: KerryMackereth(@CambridgeGender) works on racialization of AI, AsAm studies; co-host of @TheGoodRobot1 @KerryMackereth on Twitter 1:26:30 Coda: Toward a Disaffected Manifesto Beyond Survival. PhDiva Xine highlights respondent Lucia Lorenzi who was unable to attend. Lucia trained as a Canadianist and trauma theorist, working on how artists and writers use silence to reshape, resist, reimagine experiences of violence. Their artwork is featured on the cover of the book! @empathywarrior on Twitter and Instagram DISAFFECTED won the Duke UP Scholars of Color First Book Prize. For a 30% discount use the code E21YAO on the following sites North America: https://www.dukeupress.edu/disaffected UK, Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific: https://www.combinedacademic.co.uk/9781478014836/disaffected/ You can read the intro for free here: https://www.dukeupress.edu/disaffected Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/phdivaspodcast

Have you watched Netflix's The Chair? Join PhDivas Liz and Xine as they talk about all the uncomfortable resonances between their experiences as women of colour in academia and the short 'comedy' series starring Sandra Oh. (Yes, Xine even had a student describe her as 'if Sandra Oh were an academic.') They discuss antiblackness, model minority failings, sabotage, emotional labour, and sympathies with student activists and beleagured staff. Support us on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/phdivaspodcast For another great take on The Chair, see Koritha Mitchell's CNN piece: https://edition.cnn.com/2021/08/26/opinions/the-chair-sandra-oh-netflix-protagonist-mitchell/index.html

Just because they are both systems of oppression does not mean that casteism ≠ racism! Postcolonialism developed as a field of study established by predominantly Indian intellectuals -- but only understanding them as non-Black people of colour erases their caste privilege. Shaista Patel, a professor in Critical Muslim studies at UC San Diego, chats with PhDiva Xine about the nuances of Islamophobia, Hindu nationalism, and casteism that are often misread or overlooked by outsiders. Image used with the permission of Snehal P Sanathanan For more on caste: Ambedkar, B.R. (1936). Annihilation of Caste. http://www.ambedkar.org/ambcd/02.Annihilation%20of%20Caste.htm(accessed June 9, 2021). Arya, Sunaina. (2020). “Dalit or Brahminical Patriarchy?: Rethinking Indian Feminism.” CASTE: A Global Journal on Social Exclusion. 1, no. 1: 217–228. Guru, G. (2002). “How egalitarian are the social sciences in India?.” Economic and Political Weekly, 5003-5009. Rawat, Ramnarayan S., and Kusuma Satyanarayana. (2016). Dalit studies. Duke University Press. Support PhDivas on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/phdivaspodcast

Mother's Day Special! Liz interviews her mom about what it's like to raise a PhDiva. Learn about Liz's childhood career aspirations and their intergenerational experience of education in Mississippi. Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/phdivaspodcast

Springtime is the season of success for a few... and rejection for the majority. PhDivas Liz and Xine revisit the perennial topic of the many, many forms of rejection in academia -- from grants, students, programmes -- as early career scholars and attentive to disparities of power. Failure isn't only personal, but can be structural especially for BIPOC academics: is the problem with your individual proposal or is it a broader institutional issue? What is at stake? 'Branding' and the academic equivalent of being influencers are necessities for junior and minoritized academics, but this doesn't necessarily translate to economic security. Liz and Xine also discuss codeswitching how they present their research to potentially hostile audiences/strangers. Support us on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/phdivaspodcast

2021 has been a rough start for the PhDivas. Liz and Xine recorded this in the week after the white supremacist insurrection at the US Capitol -- and then somehow we had to go about academic 'business as usual.' So here the PhDivas discuss the conflicts between our exhaustion, our new curious status as inspirations, the start of term, the resumption of our research, the continued cruelties of academia as institution. All contributing to this delayed launch! You can support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/phdivaspodcast

PhDivas Dr. Xine Yao and Dr. Liz Wayne get together over American Thanksgiving to talk about the challenges of working during COVID19. Supporting our own self care as we support our students, or research efforts is no trivial feat. All the best as the term and the year are winding down! Learn about the Indigenous peoples and their treaties of the land you're on if you are in a settler colonial nation: https://native-land.ca Support PhDivas on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/phdivaspodcast

"This belongs in a museum!" Indiana Jones's catchphrase inspired generations of young archaeologists like Alex Fitzpatrick who are now critical of their discipline's colonial and imperialist pasts and presents. In this second part of their interview, PhDiva Xine chats with Alex about Napoleon's influence and approaching archaeology through animals, rather than humans. Alex works on pre-historic Britain, asking about the difference between wild and domestic animals. They also chat about the videogame Animal Crossing as self-care Learn more on her podcast Archaeo Animals @ArchaeoAnimals! https://www.archaeologypodcastnetwork.com/animals @ArchaeologyFitz https://animalarchaeology.com/ Support PhDivas Podcast on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/phdivaspodcast

Handing in your PhD dissertation and disrupting the field of archaeology is exhausting enough... but during a global pandemic? Archaeologist Alex Fitzpatrick talks to PhDiva Xine on the cusp of earning her degree about precarity, post-dissertation depression, and the strangeness of a Chinese diasporic migrant in the United Kingdom. Twitter @ArchaeologyFitz https://animalarchaeology.com/ Image by Molly Lester https://mollypukes.com PhDivas Podcast Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/phdivaspodcast

Imagine an interdisciplinary volume collecting advice and experiences of women of colour in graduate school. PhDiva Xine discusses Degrees of Difference with co-editors Denise Delgado and Kimberly McKee (Grand Valley State University). The project grew out of their friendships during their PhDs at Ohio State: other related collaborations include a conference roundtable and writings on feminist pedagogy. We discuss community-building, microaggressions, and how their collection can help support Black Lives Matter-inspired calls for institutional change in higher education. Support PhDivas on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/phdivaspodcast Buy Degrees of Difference: https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/37xtz2qt9780252043185.html https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2020/05/01/three-ways-help-women-color-and-indigenous-women-graduate-students-thrive-opinion

COVID-19 presents new challenges and possibilities for disabled students. Thousands signed an open letter asking grant agencies to automatically extend student funding and for grants for assistive equipment needed to work remotely. Conversely, many shifts to coronavirus teaching are only too familiar to disabled people who have long been advocating for change. "Access is a relationship," says space scientist Divya Persaud in this continuation of her interview with STS colleague Ellie Armstrong and PhDiva Xine. Learn about disability activism in academia -- we all gain from improvements to access. On the open letter: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/may/21/were-being-fobbed-off-why-disabled-students-are-losing-out-in-lockdown Sick Woman Theory: http://www.maskmagazine.com/not-again/struggle/sick-woman-theory You can still check out their conference Space Science in Context: https://spacescienceincontext.wordpress.com/ Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/phdivaspodcast

"To boldly go to where no man has gone before" -- the classic Star Trek slogan reflects how colonialism informs space exploration. NASA's technologies are the same used for American imperialist ventures today. Even space rocks in museums are procured because of British colonialism. Planetary scientist Divya Persaud and STS scholar Ellie Armstrong organized Space Science in Context, an online interdisciplinary conference in May 2020. PhDiva Xine discusses with Divya and Ellie the legacies of colonialism in space science and fantasies about space exploration. They highlight exciting scholarship and activism by female and nonbinary BIPOC scholars as well as share strategies for making conferences more accessible. For more on the conference Space Science in Context: https://spacescienceincontext.wordpress.com/ @ellietheelement // ellietheelement.squarespace.com/ @Divya_M_P // divyampersaud.com Support PhDivas on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/phdivaspodcast

Some of us have additional care responsibilities at home. Some of us are all alone at home. How do we care for ourselves and each other during lockdown? In this second part of our interview, Professor Charissa Cheah draws upon her expertise in psychology to talk about managing child care and the paradoxes of digitally connected loneliness. The PhDivas also discuss the status of research, lab access -- and timeline and funding extensions for students and faculty. Support PhDivas on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/phdivaspodcast

Why do we talk about our immune systems using the language of warfare? Let's discuss immunity from two perspectives that may seem very different: biomedical engineering and biopolitics. In this episode PhDivas Liz and Xine educate each other about their disciplinary knowledge of what "immunity" means. Cells at Work! is a recent anime about what goes on in the human body: Liz explains the science behind their portrayal of viruses and immune processes. Xine talks about how political and legal immunity came before our knowledge of the immune system by drawing upon Ed Cohen's A Body Worth Defending. Bonus: PhDiva Liz's genius comparisons between immune system functions and social media platforms! Cells at Work is on Netflix. Cohen's book is available from Duke University Press. Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/phdivaspodcast

Who is seen as the disease or the diseased? Psychologist Charissa Cheah received RAPID grant funding from the National Science Foundation to study the forms of anti-Chinese racism from COVID-19 and their impact on Chinese-American individuals, families, and communities. PhDivas Liz and Xine discuss with Professor Cheah the politics and histories around racial identification health in research and how people, especially immigrants or international students, understand their own racial positioning. Race conscious research is necessary: the media is finally recognizing the disproportionate mortality rate among African Americans. However, Professor Cheah discusses how such research can be distorted to eugenic ends to blame Black people as a distraction from structural racism. More on Professor Cheah's NSF grant: https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-03/uomb-rts030520.php Support PhDivas on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/phdivaspodcast

Even scientists face deportation in an anti-immigration environment. But Dr. Furaha Asani cautions that academics shouldn't think of themselves as "one of the good ones." Biochemist Dr. Asani is now one of the migrant precariat because her visa was denied for questionable reasons. PhDiva Xine Yao interviews Dr. Asani about reimagining STEM PhD training and the scientific method. It's okay to be a "very average scientist" -- Dr. Asani questions putting scientists on pedestals in terms of their claims to objectivity and upholding colonial standards of meritocracy. Dr. Furaha Asani on migrant solidarity: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/25/phd-migrants-good-immigrant-deportation Dr. Furaha Asani on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrFuraha_Asani Support the Work of PhDivas Podcast: https://www.patreon.com/phdivaspodcast

Do you have questions about #COVID19? Or even basic questions about viruses in general? Dr. Kishana Taylor is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of California, Davis. She studies the rate of reassortment between influenza viruses during co-infection. Listen as Dr. Taylor breaks down how viruses are named, with #COVID19 is so bad and what songs we sing when we wash our hands. You can follow her on twitter: @KYT_ThatsME Our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/phdivaspodcast

PhDivas Podcast interviews Computational Biologist Dr. Laura Boykin. We talk about Tree Lab, the project bringing sequencing capabilities to farmers in Uganda. Also mentioned, being nervous before a TED Talk, doing science on her own terms, and dancing. You can follow Dr. Boykin on twitter @Laura_boykin and learn about Tree Lab at cassavavirusactionproject.com Here is her recent TED Talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/laura_boykin_how_we_re_using_dna_tech_to_help_farmers_fight_crop_diseases Our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/phdivaspodcast

There are currently fewer than 30 Black women full professors in the UK... in any discipline. If you know Angela Davis and Kimberle Crenshaw, do you also know about Gail Lewis and Olive Morris? PhDiva Xine interviews Jade Bentil, a historian of Black British women's activism, and Paulette Williams, who heads initiatives to support current and aspiring Black academics. Jade and Paulette discuss staying critical of the "British" in Black British feminism, family oral histories, and the co-optation of Black studies by white saviours and colonial institutions. Jade Bentil: https://twitter.com/divanificent Paulette Williams: https://twitter.com/pwi11iams Leading Routes: www.leadingroutes.org www.twitter.com/leadingroutes

How do we evaluate the value of our work? PhDivas is finally launching a Patreon in order to sustain this project. Liz and Xine decided to sit down and record why it has taken them so long to put this together. (Awkwardness!) Sometimes we are so used to giving free labour to our institutions and our field of study that, combined with imposter syndrome, it is hard to ask for the support we need to continue that work. For some of us even the act of asking for any form of support is terrifying because of the fear of rejection -- so it feels safer not to try at all. Stop procrastinating and put the same faith you have in others into yourself! Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/phdivaspodcast We appreciate your follows, ratings, and reviews!

Job security, unequal pay, excessive workloads, gender and racial inequality: this is the state of academia everywhere. How do we push for change when institutions don't want to? In the UK the University and College Union is on STRIKE to fight for the soul of the university and that means PhDiva Xine is too. Xine interviews Dr. Francesca Brooks about the history and demands behind the strike as well as the tactics and lived experience from the perspective of precarity. If you are elsewhere in the world, may you learn something useful from this struggle! You can show your solidarity by donating to the union's fighting fund which provides financial support for those going without pay, with emphasis on the most vulnerable: https://www.ucu.org.uk/fightingfund Or you can join the #digitalstrike by not posting about any work that benefits your institutional employer during this time. Use #UCUStrike #UCUStrikesBack, reshare this information about the strike widely! https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/nov/07/university-staff-dont-want-to-strike-for-fair-pensions-and-pay-but-were-being-forced-to

it's time for a wellness check! PhDivas Liz and Xine talk about getting sick while navigating challenges as new faculty in STEM and the humanities -- and adulting. What are our new privileges and limitations on our research and advocacy? It's also a wellness check for the health of academia. Just because you are well does not mean the system is working! And enjoy the discussion of Avatar: The Last Airbender aka the greatest show of all time. Check in with yourself and those around you. As we have to remind ourselves, just because it is the final push of the semester and year doesn't mean you should push yourself to breaking... To learn more about the protests on Mauna Kea against the Thirty Meter Telescope, see Keolu Fox and Chanda Hsu Prescod-Weinstein's article: https://www.thenation.com/article/mauna-kea-tmt-colonial-science/

In the eyes of Western art all brown girls are the same. "Annah the Javanese" by the famous artist Paul Gauguin depicts a nude young brown girl with a monkey at her feet. She was his "mistress." In her PhD in Visuals Cultures Indonesian artist Khairani Barokka (Goldsmiths) uses her own art practice to question the inconsistent histories about Annah and to imagine her story in the midst of colonial exploitation. Okka and PhDiva Xine discuss disability studies, performance, poetry, and art history as two postcolonial subjects now living in the former heart of empire. Pic credit: Christa Holka. http://khairanibarokka.com @mailbykite Debut poetry collection Rope: http://ninearchespress.com/publications/poetry-collections/rope.html Poetry-art book Indigenous Species: http://www.tiltedaxispress.com/indigenous-species/ Annah: Nomenclature at the ICA https://www.ica.art/on/live/khairani-barokka-annah-nomenclature https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsIoIawX01s https://www.ica.art/on/live/khairani-barokka-performance-qa https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ejnAxXS_Yo Selected Annahs at SALTS Basel http://www.salts.ch/#/en/exhibition/bhanu-kapil-khairani-barokka

None of us in STEM or humanities should ever take libraries for granted! PhDiva Liz Wayne interviews Dr. Elaine Westbrook (Vice Provost of UNC Chapel-Hill Libraries) about the knowledge economy, peer review, and the invisible, exorbitant cost of journals. Scientists pay to have their articles published and then their universities can spend up to $40,000 on a single journal to make that research available to their community. This is an ethical matter of access and inequality on a geopolitical level. Follow Dr. Elaine L Westbrooks @UNC_Librarian!

More about PhDiva Liz's new job! What happens to your personal life when you get that coveted academic job and have to move away? We advance in our careers but family advance in age. Liz and Xine talk about how the academic job market affects dating and family. How are we treated professionally and socially if we are single versus coupled academics?

PhDiva Liz is now a tenure track Assistant Professor at Carnegie Mellon in the Departments of Chemical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering! After preparing for the job market, how do you prepare for the anxieties of negotiation and starting the job? In this first part, Liz talks to PhDiva Xine about the rapid professional growth that can only happen through this major career transition.

Are Asians apolitical? What is the term "Asian American" anyway? PhDiva Xine talks to Rachel Kuo of the Asian American Feminist Collective about racial identity in online spaces and histories of Asian American political organizing. Rachel gives us insight into the latest wave of digital activism in the Asian diaspora galvanized by Black Lives Matter. How can Asian American feminists work in antiracist solidarity with other peoples of colour rather than colluding with white supremacy or falling into ethnonationalism? #notyourwedge #notyourAsiansidekick #modelminoritymutiny Artwork of the Asian American Feminist Collective by Angel Trazo Website: https://www.asianamfeminism.org/ (specific links to our zine here and our First Times series here) Insta: https://www.instagram.com/aafc.nyc Twitter: https://twitter.com/aafcollective Donation: https://www.paypal.me/aafcollective

Grad school is trash for POC. The whisper campaign of academic trauma. Ciarra Jones's essays went viral in 2018, drawing from her experiences during her MA at Harvard Divinity School. This is not just about white antiBlackness or white fear about speaking out, but also how BIPOC students can internalize their own oppression and undermine others under the guise of care. PhDiva Xine learns from Ciarra about the hope, grace, and love those in progressive circles can get from faith practices like queer womanist theology. @ciarra_milan: Ciarra Jones is a master's candidate at Harvard Divinity School studying African and African Religions with an emphasis in Gender and Sexuality. Ciarra is a writer, speaker, and activist who is particularly concerned with how to cultivate belonging and disrupt the reproduction of trauma in academia. You can find Ciarra's work on Huffington Post, the Tempest, Black Youth Project, and Medium. The Whisper Campaign of Academic Trauma: https://mystudentvoices.com/the-whisper-campaign-of-academic-trauma-fc917686fcc3 Grad School is Trash for Students of Color and We Should Talk About That: https://mystudentvoices.com/grad-school-is-trash-for-students-of-color-and-we-should-talk-about-that-af672814b3ee

Who was actually scandalized by the 'scandal' about rich people using their money to get their questionably gifted kids into elite American higher education? PhDiva Xine discusses structural inequalities in US and UK higher education with Maryam Toorawa who works in Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion and whose experiences span Cornell, Bryn Mawr, Oxford, Yale, SOAS. Initiatives to combat inequalities are vastly different on either side of the Anglophone Atlantic -- and the level of recognition about what problems exist in your own society as opposed to what you can loudly and easily decry elsewhere. Are you really cynical if you are recognizing the truth?

It's application season! PhDivas Dr. Liz Wayne and Dr. Xine Yao share strategies for applying to graduate school in the humanities and STEM -- and how to make an informed decision about whether to apply at all. A how-to advice episode that reveals disciplinary differences amidst the shared stresses of the application process.

Why are the PhDivas interested in tarot cards and the art of divination? PhDivas Liz and Xine separately delved into tarot: this is their first full conversation about their practices of self-care. The classic Western deck has been reimagined by disenfranchised peoples. Xine draws from her research about the importance of QTPOC tarot, especially the Asian American Tarot and Dusk || Onyx Melanated Tarot for the African diaspora. Liz the scientist challenges the dichotomy between tarot, forms of belief, and STEM. They talk skepticism, the Queen of Swords card, the Death card. How do we care for ourselves as scholars, as vulnerable people in this world? Will you try out a new practice of self care you might be skeptical about after this episode? Asian American Tarot by the Asian American Literary Review: https://aalr.binghamton.edu/special-issue-on-asian-american-mental-health/ Dusk II Onyx Melanated Tarot by Courtney Alexander: https://dust2onyx.com/ For an easy introduction check out the free Golden Tarot app. Little Red Tarot is a queer feminist tarot website with lots of tutorials: www.littleredtarot.com Asali Earthworks curates and reviews QTPOC tarot decks: https://www.asaliearthwork.com/tarot-of-the-qtpoc/

Poetry can be for everyone! PhDiva Xine interviews 2017 Green College Writer-in-Residence Anne Simpson about dying well, pedagogy, and publishing -- and lifting heavy weights as a feminist act. Winner of prestigious Canadian literature awards like the Griffin, Anne has published poetry, novels, and essays. Featuring brief segments with Tiara Kerr (economics) and Wes Yocom (law)as glimpses into how a poetry workshop environment can be enriching regardless of your disciplinary background. How can medical students benefit from creative writing? How might drawings of neurons by Santiago Ramón y Cajal, groundbreaking neuroscientist, inspire poetry that allows us to work through our relationship to memory? As Audre Lorde once wrote, poetry is not a luxury. You can find out more about Anne's work here: http://www.annesimpson.ca/

How can we address global inequalities in this era of climate change? What disciplines, methods can we use – and how can we do this research ethically, collaboratively? UBC Forestry PhD student Saori Ogura is working with Indigenous peoples in Zimbabwe and the Himalayas to support their knowledges about traditional nutritious crops as a counter to monocultural cash crops like cardamom. Saori tells PhDiva Xine about her research journey from Japan to Berkeley to UNESCO involving agricultural sciences, political science, ethno-ecology, and art. And most importantly, living with communities and learning from them, not just extracting knowledge as capital. Networks of ecologies mean considering the ethics of these transnational relationships. What does diversity mean across these different contexts? How is art integral to Saori’s project and what are the vital differences between drawing and photographing plants? Ep image combines 2 drawings by Saori Saori won the 2018 Nikon Miki Jun Inspiration Award for Photography. You can view more of her work here: http://saoriogura.info/ https://www.grad.ubc.ca/campus-community/meet-our-students/ogura-saori https://expeditioneducation.org/ https://ced.berkeley.edu/events-media/news/ced-alumna-saori-ogura-receives-prestigious-nikon-salon-photography-award

Here come the trolls! Degrees, peer-reviewed publications, respect in the field -- markers of academic respectability do not shield scholars, especially BIPOC women, when people don't want to hear what we have to say. Remember PhDiva Xine's naivete in our previous episode? A month after recording, she tweeted a critique about Asian American appropriation of Blackness tied to the erasure of antiBlack, antiLatinx racisms when the media takes the Harvard affirmative action case as solely about anti-Asian sentiment. And then the racist and race traitor tweets began. PhDiva Liz interviews Xine about coming under attack from both alt-right white supremacists and MRAsians (men's rights activists Asians). When should we become concerned about backlash? How can we protect ourselves? We talk practical tips from friends and our previous episodes. Apologies for some audio quality issues -- Xine had packed her equipment since she was moving to London just a few days later! Image from Xine's research at the American Antiquarian Society Earlier episode with Drs. Carrie Mott and Daniel Cockayne on alt-right attacks after the Washington Post raised the profile of their research: https://soundcloud.com/phdivas/politicsofcitation

From ABD to the verge of becoming faculty: PhDivas Liz and Xine have been doing this podcast for 3 years strong! We had no idea what impact, good or bad, this might have on our lives as junior scholars. In this episode we reflect upon public scholarship from scicomm to public humanities to TED Talks. We're proud to build a public stage to help raise other women in academia -- and you can join in too! (Enjoy Xine’s naivete before listening to part 2.) Images taken from a gif by Libby VanderPloeg: https://giphy.com/gifs/cute-feminist-girlpower-3o7abBphHJngINCHio

Geosciences are the least diverse of all STEM fields. But is it enough to track statistics about gender and race given the discipline's colonial, masculinist history? Quantitative scientists experiment with qualitative methods in order to examine experiences at a Canadian geoscience conference. PhDiva Xine interviews marine biologist Sara Cannon and fluvial geomorphologist Leonora King (UBC Geography) about their paper that tracked posters vs. panels, behaviour at talks and on panels, and the division of labour. What are the limits on such a study? How can this translate into institutional change? Since recording this episode, the CGU executive has created a committee to determine the current state of diversity within the CGU membership and to establish a plan going forward to promote diversity within the CGU and Canadian geosciences. "Diversity in geoscience: Participation, behaviour, and the division of scientific labour at a Canadian geoscience conference" in the journal Facets by Leonora King, Lucy MacKenzie, Marc Tadaki, Sara Cannon, Kiely McFarlane, David Reid, Michele Koppes http://www.facetsjournal.com/doi/10.1139/facets-2017-0111 Leonora King (@Leonora_King) www.leonoraking.com Sara Cannon (@secanno) www.saraecannon.com

The 1970 student massacre at Kent State is iconic in the United States and beyond. Days before the 2018 anniversary, at least 65 students at Aligarh Muslim University in India were brutalized by the police for peacefully protesting the police dismissal -- without charges -- of the armed Hindu nationalists who had threatened their campus. PhDiva Xine talks with Wajiha Mehdi (PhD student in Social Justice at UBC) to raise Western awareness of the protests in India by students, farmers, and many other parts of Indian society against state neoliberalism, Hindu nationalism, the abuse of the lower castes. Why has this barely been covered in Western media? What kinds of narratives make international headlines from a country like India or about Muslims? Photo (right) by Wajahat Jilani More information here: http://thecompanion.in/amu-chalo-to-save-academia-from-hindutva-terror/

PhDiva Xine is moving to London, England as a #NewProf! Liz and Xine catch up after an exhausting spring to talk about Xine's new position as Lecturer at University College London, differences between STEM and humanities public outreach, illusions of meritocracy -- and complicated feelings to kind cliches. "I always knew you would make it." "Are you excited?"

Creating or conjuring? Junior scholars Emmanuelle Andrews and Katrina Sellinger were inspired by a public dialogue on the work of words between poet Dionne Brand and critic Christina Sharpe moderated by writer David Chariandy. Emmanuelle and Katrina co-edited a special issue of The Capilano Review extending that conversation on Blackness through their curation of essays, interviews, poetry, sculpture, and tattoo art. PhDiva Xine talks to these up-and-coming scholars at UBC about Black love, mentorship, Canadian and English moral exceptionalisms about race, and how people create but do not think of themselves as creators. The Capilano Review 3.34 (physical or digital copies available): https://thecapilanoreview.com/featured/ Emmanuelle Andrews (@Elle_Drews) co-directed the short film Coming to Love. Her MA thesis in Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice (UBC) is entitled "Reading the Threat, Imagining Otherwise: Notting Hill Carnival, the London Riots and a Global Issue of Blackness." Katrina Sellinger (@space_femme) is working on diasporic Black queerness through studies of Janelle Monae and the film Moonlight. She is completing her MA in English (UBC) and will be starting her PhD at McMaster University.

"Dead, drunk, or dancing": Kavelina SnowGiggles Torres​ (Yup’ik/Iñupiaq/Athabascan) seeks to challenge the usual media representations of Indigenous peoples. PhDiva Xine Yao​ interviews Kavelina about her work as a writer and filmmaker selected for the Sundance NativeLab Fellowship. What can narrative do that documentaries can't? Yugumalleq/Shades of Life (2014) is currently on exhibit at the Institute of American Indian Arts. Her play "Something in the Living Room" will be performed spring 2018 at Green College, UBC on the traditional, ancestral, unceded territory of the Musqueam people. This episode contains references to Star Trek, Firefly, The Fifth Element, and much more scifi geekery. Duncan McCue is attributed to the quote “drumming, dancing, drunk or dead”. He heard it from an elder. His rule is called the WD4 rule. A Indigenous/Aboriginal will make it in media if they are a “Warrior, drumming, dancing, drunk or dead”. He is an Anishinaubae, from Ontario, a member of the Chippewas of Georgina Island First Nation. Kavelina's Twitter: @SnowGigglesAK Vision Maker Media: https://www.visionmakermedia.org/bios/kavelina-torres "Yugumalleq" is part of "The Abundant North: Alaska Native Films of Influence" at the Institute of American Indian Arts: https://iaia.edu/event/abundant-north-alaska-native-films-influence/

Who gets cited in your discipline? What if exploring that question led to death threats? "Why these professors are warning against promoting the work of straight, white men" is the Washington Post's take on Drs. Carrie Mott(Rutgers) and Daniel Cockayne (UWaterloo)'s peer-reviewed article on the politics of citation. The alt-right was not happy. PhDiva Xine talks to these feminist geographers about the dangers of public scholarship, academic vs. mainstream media timelines of production and attention, and their allyship as white scholars trying to center conversations led by women of color. What happens to academic freedom for junior scholars, especially those underrepresented, in an increasing precarious profession? On Twitter check out @citeblackwomen #citeblackwomen Tressie Cottom McMillan's essay "Everything But the Burden: Publics, Public Scholarship, and Institutions": https://tressiemc.wordpress.com/2015/05/12/everything-but-the-burden-publics-public-scholarship-and-institutions/ Mott and Cockayne's article "Citation matters: mobilizing the politics of citation toward a practice of ‘conscientious engagement’": http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0966369X.2017.1339022?journalCode=cgpc20 Washington Post's representation of their work: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/07/16/feminist-scientists-say-citing-research-by-straight-white-men-promotes-a-system-of-oppression/?utm_term=.166bfc119367 Dr. Carrie Mott: https://geography.rutgers.edu/people/faculty-core/472-mott-carrie Dr. Daniel Cockayne: https://uwaterloo.ca/geography-environmental-management/people-profiles/daniel-cockayne

Race is messy, literally and figuratively, as Professor Brigitte Fielder (Wisconsin-Madison) argues in her project on the non-linear transferability of race in nineteenth-century America. Shakespeare's Othello in America became a minstrel play warning against the dangers of miscegenation -- what does it mean with Othello's blackface makeup begrimes Desdemona? At the 2017 conference of the American Studies Association, PhDiva Xine chats with Brigitte about anti-racist mentoring, pedagogy, and colleagueship in higher ed and their discipline as a dynamic entity. How can we change a field of study and whose shoulders do we stand upon? (Shoutout to work in early Black studies, like the the Just Teach One-Early African American Print Project: http://jtoaa.common-place.org/ and the Colored Conventions project: coloredconventions.org/) More on Brigitte Fielder's work: http://www.brigfield.org/

How do children of immigrants survive in the wake of diaspora? Punjabi is Canada's 5th most spoken language. As a PhD student in Asian Studies at UBC, Kiran Sunar reads, translates, and speaks multiple languages as a part of reclaiming Punjabi literary forms from Orientalism. Kiran and PhDiva Xine discuss Rupi Kaur and the power of Instagram poetry, disgraceful Canadian histories, and the importance of ice cream to BIPOC friendship. "How do we keep our wounded?" asks Kiran in this conversation about generosity, kindness, and creation in activism and literature. Keep an eye out for Kiran's novel currently titled "Nerve"! If you're looking for some good reading, peruse the writers mentioned here: Audre Lorde, Hiromi Goto, Dionne Brand, Larissa Lai, Cherrie Moraga, Nalo Hopkinson. More on Kiran Sunar: http://asia.ubc.ca/kiran-sunar/

How can we empower teen girls of color? PhDivas Liz and Xine talk to Eden and Ellisa Oyewo about how their C.O.R.E. work supports girls in those formative years before university. These sisters from Indiana collaborate from different cities and careers (engineering vs. fashion) to create and run C.O.R.E. (Creating Opportunity to Reach Empowerment), an online magazine and on-site programming at schools to bring career resources, financial planning, fashion tips, and relationship advice catered to girls of color 12-18. We talk about the struggles of girlhood and it turns out even the PhDivas have things to learn from C.O.R.E.! C.O.R.E. Magazine: http://thecorereader.com/ You can also find them on Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest!

800,000 undocumented young people in the US will be endangered if the DACA(Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program ends. PhDivas Liz and Xine interview DREAMer Dory Castillo, an amazing undergrad furthering children's science education who hopes to become a physicist herself. But because of her undocumented status, she has to live with the threat of deportation to a country she's never even visited. From Dory's dreams about studying fluid mechanics and her love of teaching, we turn to discussing issues of respectability, immigration, and the many, many misconceptions about undocumented immigrants, particularly the DREAMers. We support the DREAMers because they are #HeretoStay. Help to defend DACA: https://unitedwedream.org/

After the events of Charlottesville what has changed or SHOULD change for the start of the school year? How do we navigate family legacies if you're descended from the enslaved or have Confederate ancestors? What if these issues are in your face on campus? These debates hit close to home for PhDiva Liz and Dr. Jill Spivey Caddell at UNC Chapel Hill where the Confederate statue Silent Sam stands. Topics include Jill's research on Civil War monuments, revisionist histories, #NoConfederate, and the problems with teaching and representing the Civil War. How do you navigate being a Southerner in the North? Do monuments reflect the past, the present, or the hopes of the future? (Check out Charles Chesnutt's short stories and novels!) PhDiva Liz's essay "Are Universities Prepared?": https://medium.com/@liz.wayne/are-universities-prepared-eb01d3c1bd0 Dr. Jill Spivey Caddell's article on Melville and Civil War monuments: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/TNEQ_a_00370 More on Dr. Jill: https://jspiveycaddell.com/ Charles. W. Chesnutt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_W._Chesnutt