Why are academics encouraged to be rigorous and exhausted, instead of innovative and engaged? What learning outcomes are we sacrificing by being so serious? Dr. Alison James joins us to share insights from her research and practice of emphasizing play in higher education. This episode explores: How having fun can strengthen problem solving skills and learning outcomes. Why higher education doesn’t take play, creativity, and fun seriously enough. What led her to prioritize play when other educators weren’t. A discussion of her books The Value of Play in Higher Education, and The Power of Play in Higher Education. Our guest is: Dr. Alison James, who is Professor Emerita of the University of Winchester. She is the author of numerous articles and publications on play and creativity in university learning, and of the three year study The Value of Play in HE, supported by the Imagination Lab Foundation and available free here. She is the co-editor, with Chrissi Nerantzi, of The Power of Play in HE: Creativity in Tertiary Learning, and the co-author, with Stephen D. Brookfield, of Engaging Imagination: Helping Students Become Creative and Reflective Thinkers.Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is a freelance book editor. She has served as content director and producer of the Academic Life podcast since she launched it in 2020. The Academic Life is proud to be an academic partner of the New Books Network.Listeners to this episode may also be interested in: Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life, by Dacher Keltner Hanging Out: The Radical Power of Killing Time, by Sheila Liming Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age, by Katherine May The Fun Habit: How the Pursuit of Joy and Wonder Can Change Your Life, by Dr. Mike Rucker The Well-Gardened Mind: The Restorative Power of Nature, by Sue Stuart-Smith This conversation about seeking meaning instead of happiness This conversation about the importance of spending time in nature This conversation about the need to take a break from overworking and underliving This conversation about belonging and the science of creating human connections This conversation about the value of living a “good-enough” life Welcome to the Academic Life! Join us here each week to learn from experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world, and embrace the broad definition of what it truly means to live an academic life. Missed any of the 150+ Academic Life episodes? You can find them all archived here. And check back soon: we’re in the studio creating more episodes for your academic journey—and beyond! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/academic-life

Dr. Zoe Ayres, an expert in mental health during a PhD program, discusses the hidden curriculum and pressures of graduate school, the need for a network of mentors outside school, and deep systemic problems in academia. She also explores the experiences of PhD students and provides resources for students while offering ideas for improvements that universities can make to ensure a supportive environment for all.

What is a Whisper Network? What can you gain from being in one, and what is expected of the network members? Not everybody is invited is into a Whisper Network—which is part of how they keep members safe. But it’s also how many of the vulnerable are further left out. Today, Dr. Carrie Ann Johnson joins us to share her research on Whisper Networks, and their role in bridging the safety gap for vulnerable people. This episode explores: Why formal reporting systems fail. How whisper networks can offer safeguards. Why some people who need to be in a whisper network aren’t in one. Who gets left out, and why. A discussion of the article “Whisper Networks Thrive When Women Lose Faith in Formal Systems of Reporting Sexual Harassment,” which you can access here. CW: Examples of harassment (including sexual harassment) are included throughout this episode.Our guest is: Dr. Carrie Ann Johnson, who earned a Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Professional communication from Iowa State University and received the Iowa State Research Excellence Award for her dissertation, "Whisper Networks: Sexual Harassment Protection Through Informal Networks." She earned a master’s degree in American Studies and a bachelor’s degree in journalism and public relations, both from Utah State University. She loves digging into difficult topics and opening doors for deeper contemplation about our lived realities. She is the Research and Outreach Coordinator for the Catt Center for Women in Politics, Iowa State University, and is on the editorial board of BONDS, where you can read more her work on whisper networks in organizations.Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who holds a PhD in history. She is a freelance book editor. She has served as content director and producer of the Academic Life podcast since she launched it in 2020. The Academic Life is proud to be an academic partner of the New Books Network.Listeners to this episode may also be interested in: This conversation on Who Gets Believed This conversation with Rebekah Tausig on Sitting Pretty This conversation on feminist communication strategies This conversation on Black Boy Out of Time This conversation with Virgie Tovar on The Right to Remain Fat This conversation with Jessica McCrory Calarco on The Field Guide to Grad School This conversation on structural inequality and barriers to tenure for women of color This conversation about quitting a PhD program This conversation on community-building and How We Show Up Welcome to the Academic Life! Join us here each week to learn from experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world, and embrace the broad definition of what it truly means to live an academic life. Missed any of the 150+ Academic Life episodes? You can find them all archived here. And check back soon: we’re in the studio preparing more episodes for your academic journey—and beyond! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/academic-life

You’ve probably heard by now that there’s a hidden curriculum in academia. But it’s called hidden for a reason—only some [privileged] people are in the know about what it contains. And when you can’t find the answers you need, earning your degree is much harder than it should be. Today, higher education podcast host Dr. Ethel Tungohan of the Academic Aunties joins Dr. Christina Gessler, the producer and host of the Academic Life, to talk about why they are so passionate about bridging this knowledge gap. This episode explores: The importance of seeing the structural barriers and gatekeepers. Why the problem is not you, it’s them. How being left out of important conversations harms women, first gen students, and people of color in academia. Some advice that can help you survive and thrive in academia. Our guest is: Dr. Ethel Tungohan, who is Associate Professor of Politics and Social Science at York University. She received her doctoral degree in Political Science and Women and Gender Studies from the University of Toronto. Her research looks at migrant labor, specifically assessing migrant activism. Her work has been published in academic journals such as the International Feminist Journal of Politics; Politics, Groups, and Identities; and Canadian Ethnic Studies. Dr. Tungohan specializes in socially engaged research and is actively involved in grassroots migrant organizations such as Gabriela-Ontario and Migrante-Canada. She is the host of the Academic Aunties.Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is a freelance book editor. She has served as content director and producer of the Academic Life podcast since she launched it in 2020. The Academic Life is proud to be an academic partner of the New Books Network.Listeners to this episode may also be interested in: Care Activism: Migrant Domestic Workers, Movement-Building, and Communities of Care, by Ethel Tungohan Containing Diversity: Canada and the Politics of Immigration in the 21st Century, by Yasmeen Abu-Laban, Ethel Tungohan, and Christina Gabriel Filipinos in Canada: Disturbing Invisibility, by Roland Sintos Coloma, Bonnie McElhinny, Ethel Tungohan, John Paul Catungal and Lisa M. Davidson The Academic Life podcast on community-building and How We Show Up, with Mia Birdsong The Academic Life episode on the Field Guide to Grad School The Academic Life episode on barriers to tenure for women of color The Academic Life podcast on feminist communication strategies The Academic Life podcast on how to stop overworking and underliving The Academic Life podcast about quitting a PhD program The Academic Life episode on The Grant Writing Guide Welcome to The Academic Life! On the Academic Life channel we are inspired and informed by today’s knowledge-producers, working inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Find us on Twitter: @AcademicLifeNBN. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/academic-life

What defines the complicated relationship between brothers and sisters—is it lineage? Love? Obligation? Friendship? Need? And why did so many parents expect their offspring to share and share alike? Historian Amy Harris joins us to talk about: What led to her interest in researching sibling relationships. Why her book project seemed to find her in an archive in England. How the early stresses on sibling relationships plagued them in later life. Why parents’ behavior affects how sibling relationships function. A discussion of the book Siblinghood and Social Relations in Georgian England: Share and Share Alike. Today’s book is: Siblinghood and Social Relations in Georgian England: Share and Share Alike (Manchester University Press, 2016), Dr. Amy Harris, which examines the impact sisters and brothers had on eighteenth-century English families and society. Using evidence from letters, diaries, probate disputes, court transcripts, prescriptive literature and portraiture, Dr. Harris argues that although parents’ wills often recommended their children 'share and share alike', siblings had to constantly negotiate between prescribed equality and practiced inequalities. This is the first monograph-length analysis of early modern siblings in England, and is at the forefront of sibling studies. The book is intended for a broad audience of scholars – particularly those interested in families, women, children and eighteenth-century social and cultural history.Our guest is: Dr. Amy Harris, who is an associate professor of history and family/history genealogy at BYU, where she also serves as the director for the Family History Program.She is the author of Siblinghood and Social Relations in Georgian England, and the co-editor of Family Life in England and America, 1690-1820. She is currently working on her new book: A Single View: Family Life and the Unmarried in Georgian England, which analyzes family relations across the lifespan of never-married men and women.Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who holds a PhD in American history. She has served as content director and producer of the Academic Life since she launched it in 2020. The Academic Life is proud to be an academic partner of the New Books Network.Listeners to this episode may also be interested in: This episode on the detective work of research This episode on reclaiming lost voices and recovering history This episode on writing feminist biography This episode about the House on Henry Street and public-facing humanities This episode on how our pets are family members This episode on archival etiquette and what to know before you go This episode on launching an online history conference This episode on where research really begins Welcome to the Academic Life! Join us here each week to learn from experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world, and embrace the broad definition of what it truly means to live an academic life. Missed any of the 150+ Academic Life episodes? You can find them all archived here. And check back soon: we’re busy in the studio preparing new episodes for your academic journey—and beyond! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/academic-life

Does listening to an audio book count as reading? Can audio books help democratize education? Will more academic presses be creating audio versions of their books? Princeton University Press audio books editor Danielle D’Orlando joins us to share about the exciting future of audio books for academia.More about PUP Audio: In 2018, the Princeton University Press team launched the first university press audiobook program, Princeton Audio. Four years and almost a thousand hours of published audiobooks later, they published their hundredth audiobook. Along the way, they have had the privilege of learning from their trusted partners in audio, from authors and agents to narrators, producers, proof-listeners, directors, and engineers. Their hundredth audio production is “only the tip of the iceberg”, which also includes co-publications with other publishers, audiobooks produced by partners new and old including Audible, Recorded Books, Blackstone, University Press Audio and many others.More about our guest: Danielle D’Orlando is the Curator of Audio at Princeton University Press, home to the first in-house university press audiobook division: Princeton Audio. She spent much of her career at Yale University Press where she spearheaded their audio program, including the development of Yale Press Audio. She has an M.S. in Publishing and lives in Connecticut with her spouse, two children, and, as featured in today’s episode, her 10-year-old dog, Lacey.More about our host: Dr. Christina Gessler holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore what stories we tell and what happens to those we never tell. She is a freelance book editor, and has served as content director and producer of the Academic Life podcast since she launched it in 2020. The Academic Life is proud to be an academic partner of the New Books Network.Listeners to this episode may be interested in: Becoming the Writer You Already Are, by Michelle Boyd The Grant Writing Guide, by Betty S. Lai The Book Proposal Book, by Laura Portwood-Stacer Writing with Pleasure, by Helen Sword How To Impress an Acquisitions Editor The libro playlist of African-American studies audio books for AP students Listeners may be interested in these Academic Life episodes: This conversation on revising your dissertation for press submission This conversation on determining if you need a developmental editor This discussion of the top ten things to fix in your manuscript before submitting it This conversation on university press submissions and the peer review process This conversation on marketing your scholarly book This conversation about how to write a book proposal This conversation explaining open-access publishing This discussion about doing archival research This conversation about Where Research Begins Welcome to the Academic Life! Join us here to learn from experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world, and embrace the broad definition of what it truly means to live an academic life. Missed any of the 150+ Academic Life episodes? You can find them all archived here. And check back soon: we’re in the studio preparing more episodes for your academic journey—and beyond! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/academic-life

Today’s book is: Forager: Field Notes for Surviving a Family Cult, published by Algonquin Books, and written by Michelle Dowd. Forager is a memoir which showcases Michelle’s life growing up on an isolated mountain in California as part of an apocalyptic cult, and how she found her way out of poverty and illness by drawing on the gifts of the wilderness.Our guest is: Michelle Dowd, who is a journalism professor and contributor to The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The LA Book Review, TIME Magazine, The Alpinist, ORION, LA Parent Mag, Catapult, and other publications. She was 2022 Faculty Lecturer of the Year at Chaffey College, where she founded the award-winning literary journal The Chaffey Review, advises Student Media, and teaches poetry and critical thinking in the California Institutions for Men and Women in Chino. She was a Longreads Top 5 for her article on the relationship between environmentalism and hope in The Alpinist, nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize, and her Modern Love column in The New York Times inspired a book contract. Michelle was raised on a mountain in the Angeles National Forest where she learned to identify flora and fauna, navigate by the stars, forage for edible plants, and care for the earth. She is the author of Forager: Field Notes on Surviving a Family Cult. Learn more about her at https://www.michelledowd.org/Our show host and producer is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore what stories we tell and what happens to those we never tell. She has continuously served as the show host and producer of the Academic Life podcast since she launched it in 2020. Academic Life is proud to be an academic partner of the New Books Network.Listeners to this episode may also be interested in: This Time magazine article on growing up in a cult and survival skills Becoming the Writer You Already Are, by Michelle Boyd The Lost Journals of Sacajawea, by Debra Magpie Earling The Business of Being a Writer, by Jane Friedman We Are Too Many: A Memoir, by Hannah Pittard The Killer Whale Journals: Our Love and Fear of Orcas, by Hanne Strager Writing with Pleasure, by Helen Sword Welcome to Academic Life: The podcast for your academic journey and beyond! Join us to learn from experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world, and embrace the broad definition of what it means to live an academic life. If you’d like to further support the show, please consider enjoying your morning coffee in an Academic Life mug. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/academic-life

Why are students encouraged to move far from home and family, to attend “the best school”? Why aren’t the emotional and physical costs of this disclosed to students and their families? Dr. Jorge Juan Rodríguez joins us to talk about his article, “Lessons From My Working Class Parents,” and the graduate school sacrifices he wouldn’t make. This episode explores: The personal costs first gen students make when they leave family behind. How lived experience can influence your field of study. Why stories from his parents led to his dissertation topic. What led him to prioritize his family and his home life in graduate school. Lessons from his parents. Our guest is: Dr. Jorge Juan Rodriguez, who is the son of two Puerto Rican migrants. He grew up in an affordable housing community outside of Hartford, Connecticut. His lived experiences in that community influenced his academic work, leading him to degrees in biblical studies, liberation theologies, and a Ph.D. in history where he specialized in the intersections of religion and social movements. While engaging public scholarship and teaching courses in U.S. Religious History, Latinx Religious Activism, and 20th Century Social Movements, Dr. Rodríguez also serves as the Associate Director for Strategic Programming at the Hispanic Summer Program. He consults with institutions of higher education across the country on matters of policy development, grant systems, curricular reviews, social media management, and internal operations. In all that he does, he invites people to critically assess the histories that shape them, the communities that ground them, the challenges of our current systems, and the possibilities of dreaming new systems into existence.Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women and gender.Listeners to this episode may also be interested in: How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship and Community, by Mia Birdsong How to Human: An Incomplete Manual for Living in a Messed-Up World, by Alice Connor Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself, by Nedra Glover Tawwab Dr. Jorge Juan Rodriguez's blog post entitled Careerism and the Lessons of My Working-Class Parents The Academic Life podcast on community-building and How We Show Up, with Mia Birdsong The Academic Life episode on the Field Guide to Grad School The Academic Life episode with Virgie Tovar on body acceptance and ending fatphobia The Academic Life episode on barriers to tenure for women of color The Academic Life podcast on the benefits of living a "good-enough" life The Academic Life podcast on belonging and the science of creating connection and bridging divides Welcome to The Academic Life! On the Academic Life channel we are inspired and informed by today’s knowledge-producers, working inside and outside the academy. Find us on Twitter: @AcademicLifeNBN. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/academic-life

What happens when you come of age in mid-life? Why is so challenging to figure out your own past? Can you find the permission to be weird? (And can you be happy if you don’t?) Memoirist and English professor Hannah Pittard joins us to explore: If the personal is ever too personal. What is a collective memory. The imperfect way we perceive our own experiences. Taking risks in writing and in life. The memoir We Are Too Many. Today’s book is: We Are Too Many, a memoir about a marriage-ending affair between award-winning author Hannah Pittard’s husband and her best friend. An innovative and genre-bending look at a marriage and friendship gone wrong, Professor Pittard recalls a decade’s worth of conversations that are fast-paced, intimate, and reveal the vulnerabilities inherent in any friendship or marriage. She takes stock not only of her own past and future but also of the larger, more universal experiences they connect with—from the depths of female rage to the ways we outgrow certain people. We Are Too Many examines the unfiltered parts of the female experience, as well as the possibilities in starting life over after a catastrophe.Our guest is: Professor Hannah Pittard, who is the author Visible Empire, Reunion, Listen to Me, The Fates Will Find Their Way, and the memoir We Are Too Many. She is a professor of English at the University of Kentucky.Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is a historian.Listeners to this episode may also be interested in: Becoming the Writer You Already Are, by Michelle R. Boyd Story Genius, by Lisa Cron Writing Down the Bones, by Natalie Goldberg Revise, by Pamela Haag Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott Academic Life episode with Professor Morgan Talty about Night of the Living Rez Academic Life episode with novelist Erica Bauermeister, who left academia Academic Life episode with Nancy Thayer, an English professor who left academia to write full time Academic Life episode on writing memoir with Dr. Rebekah Tausig Academic Life episode on Shoutin in the Fire with Dante Stewart Welcome to The Academic Life! Join us here each week to learn from today’s experts inside and outside the academy, and embrace the broad definition of what it truly means to live an academic life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/academic-life

From Dr. Painter restoring the words of Sojourner Truth’s original speech, to VP-candidate Kamala Harris enduring through repeated interruptions at her debate, to Katie Porter silently reading The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck at the Speaker of the House election—American women persist in speaking over their censors. While this takes courage, it is neither new or modern. American women have spoken in public spaces for hundreds of years, on myriad subjects, in venues of varying size, through a variety of methods. So why are their speeches consistently omitted from anthologies?Today’s book is: Speaking While Female: 75 Extraordinary Speeches by American Women, by Dana Rubin. This anthology reexamines the American story as it unfolded through the centuries, revealing that in every time and place and at every critical juncture, women were speaking. Women from all backgrounds—some whose names you already know and others who will be introduced to you here—spoke in every corner of the land, and in a variety of ways. This volume offers a corrective to the story we have been told about whose ideas and which voices shaped the nation.Today’s guest is: Dana Rubin, who is the author of Speaking While Female: 75 Extraordinary Speeches by American Women. She is the creator of the Speaking While Female Speech Bank,and the founder of the Leadership Communications Roundtable. Learn more about Dana Rubin and the speech bank here.Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who holds a PhD in American history. She has served as content director and producer of the Academic Life since she launched it in 2020. The Academic Life is proud to be an academic partner of the New Books Network.Listeners to this episode may also be interested in: Creating Black Americans: African American History and Its Meanings, 1619 to the Present, by Nell Irvin Painter Learn more about Emma Willard and the Willard School here This episode on reclaiming lost voices and recovering women’s history This episode on feminist communication strategies This episode on overcoming public-speaking anxieties This episode on underrepresentation in the archive This episode discussing the anniversary of the 19th amendment with two curators from the Smithsonian Welcome to the Academic Life! Join us here each week to learn from experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world, and embrace the broad definition of what it truly means to live an academic life. Missed any of the 150+ Academic Life episodes? You can find them all archived here. And check back soon: we’re busy in the studio preparing new episodes for your academic journey—and beyond! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/academic-life