New Work in Digital Humanities
Can we Engage in Public Scholarship with Feminist and Accessible Communication?
Podcast summary created with Snipd AI
Quick takeaways
- Public scholarship is vital for countering misinformation and expanding research reach.
- Dr. Alex Ketchum emphasizes the importance of intersectional feminist approaches in public scholarship.
- Promoting inclusive language and sustainability is crucial for engaging diverse audiences in scholarship.
Deep dives
Overview of ZipRecruiter
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Introduction to Dr. Alex Ketchum and Her Work
Dr. Alex Ketchum, a faculty lecturer at McGill University, specializes in Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies. Through her book 'Engage in Public Scholarship,' she offers insights on feminist and accessible communication. Her academic journey from majoring in feminist studies to leading a tech and scholarship lab reflects her commitment to making research inclusive and engaging for broader audiences.
Challenges Faced During Education and Career Choices
Dr. Alex Ketchum's academic path, from high school to pursuing history and gender studies, highlights a winding journey towards her current roles at McGill University. Despite initial uncertainty, her dedication to sharing knowledge outside academia led to projects like the feminist accessible publishing series. Her journey showcases the importance of interdisciplinary exploration and making academia accessible to diverse audiences.
Exploring Tech and Feminism in Scholarship
Dr. Alex Ketchum's transition from food and feminism projects to tech and feminism reflects her dynamic research interests shaped by personal experiences and societal contexts. Encouraging diverse voices through her Speaker Series, she extends academic discussions beyond traditional boundaries. Her book 'Engage in Public Scholarship' offers practical toolkits for digital and analog communication, promoting feminist and accessible research dissemination.
Promoting Accessibility and Sustainability in Scholarship
Dr. Alex Ketchum advocates for accessible scholarship that transcends jargon and promotes inclusive language for broader engagement. She emphasizes the importance of sustainability in scholarship, addressing challenges such as technological neutrality and digital preservation. By integrating digital formats and emphasizing continuous learning, she encourages scholars to engage thoughtfully and creatively in their communication strategies, prioritizing sustainability and community connections.
Today’s book is: Engage in Public Scholarship: A Guidebook on Feminist and Accessible Communication, by Dr. Alex D. Ketchum. Public scholarship—sharing research with audiences outside of academic settings—has become increasingly necessary to counter the rise of misinformation, fill gaps from cuts to traditional media, and increase the reach of important scholarship. Engaging in these efforts often comes with the risk of harassment and threats—especially for women, people of color, queer communities, and precariously employed workers. Engage in Public Scholarship provides guidance on translating research into inclusive public outreach while ensuring that such efforts are safer and more accessible. Dr. Ketchum discusses practices and planning for a range of educational activities from in-person and online events, conferences, and lectures to publishing and working with the media, social media activity, blogging, and podcasting. Using an intersectional feminist lens, this book offers a concise approach to challenges and benefits of feminist and accessible public scholarship.
Our guest is: Dr. Alex Ketchum, who is the Faculty Lecturer of the Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies of McGill University. She is the Director of the Just Feminist Tech and Scholarship Lab. She is the author of Engage in Public Scholarship!: A Guidebook on Feminist and Accessible Communication (Concordia University Press, 2022), and Ingredients for Revolution: A History of American Feminist Restaurants, Cafes, and Coffeehouses (2022). Since 2019, Ketchum has organized the SSHRC-funded Disrupting Disruptions: The Feminist and Accessible Publishing and Communications Technologies Speaker and Workshop Series. She is also the founder of The Feminist Restaurant Project, and co-founder and editor of The Historical Cooking Project, and the former co-founder of Food, Feminism, and Fermentation. She is published in Feminist Studies, Feminist Media Studies, and Digital Humanities Quarterly. Dr. Ketchum was named one of the 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics for 2021, and is involved in feminist, food, and environmental politics. She has worked on organic farms in Ireland and France, and she founded Farm House in Middletown, Connecticut, a living community dedicated to food politics work.
Listeners to this episode may also be interested in:
- A Primer for Teaching Digital History: 10 Design Principles by Jennifer Guiliano
- Roopika Risam and Jennifer Guiliano, editors, Reviews in Digital Humanities
- This podcast episode on Hope for the Humanities PhD
- This podcast episode on new ways of launching an online conference
- This episode on exploring public-facing humanities at historic sites
Welcome to The Academic Life! Join us here each week, where we learn directly from experts. We embrace the broad definition of what it means to lead an academic life, and are informed and inspired by today’s knowledge-producers working inside and outside the academy.
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