Shows
PhDivasS7E1 | You Are Not Alone: Race + Mental Health w Dr Samara Linton & Rianna WalcottGood 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
...2022-09-261h 02
PhDivasS6E9 | Pandemic Pedagogy & Sailor Moon Solidarity w Dr. Cassie OseiAdversity 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...2022-07-1131 min
PhDivasS6E8 | Afro-Brazilian Women's History & Low Femme Theory with Dr. Cassie OseiWherever 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...2022-05-2700 min
PhDivasS6E7 | PhDivas Discuss DISAFFECTED: Solidarities Outside the Master's HouseLet'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...2022-03-2253 min
PhDivasS6E6 | WOC Then, WOC Now Pt 1: Writing Books & Historical Black Women in STEMSo 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...2022-02-211h 01
PhDivasS6E4 | PhDivas Watch Netflix's The Chair: WOC Safeguarding & SabotageHave 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.html2021-09-301h 11
PhDivasS6E3 | Casteism ≠ Racism: Prof Shaista Patel on the Failures of 'Postcolonialism'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.ht...2021-08-2436 min
PhDivasS6E2 | Springtime Rejections: PhDivas Talk About Academic FailureSpringtime 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...2021-04-2951 min
PhDivasS6E1 | New Year, New Faculty Struggles: 2021 Inspirations & Insurrection2021 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/phdivaspodcast2021-03-1154 min
PhDivasS5E18 | The Good, the Bad, the COVID-19: Winding Down and Burning OutPhDivas 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/phdivaspodcast2020-12-1845 min
PhDivasS5E17 | The Anti-Indiana Jones Approach: Decolonizing Zoo Archaeology w Alex Fitzpatrick"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...2020-11-3035 min
PhDivasS3E16 | Phinishing Your PhD During a Pandemic ft. Archaeologist Alex FitzpatrickHanding 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/phdivaspodcast2020-10-3046 min
PhDivasS5E15 | Degrees of Difference: WOC Graduate Experiences with Denise Delgado & Kim McKeeImagine 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...2020-09-3051 min
PhDivasS5E14 | Disability Activism & Access in Academia: Divya Persaud & Ellie ArmstrongCOVID-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
...2020-08-1329 min
PhDivasS5E13 | Space Science, Space Colonialism: Ellie Armstrong & Divya Persaud on #SSiC2020"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...2020-07-1644 min
PhDivasS5E12 | COVID-19 Care-Work for Academic Families & Singles with Professor Charissa CheahSome 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/phdivaspodcast2020-06-1134 min
PhDivasS5E11 | Cells and Society at Work: Biomedical & Biopolitical Takes on ImmunityWhy 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...2020-05-1449 min
PhDivasS5E10 | COVID-19 Anti-Asian & Anti-Black Racism with Professor Charissa CheahWho 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...2020-04-2441 min
PhDivasS5E9 | The Migrant Precariat & the Scientific Method: Dr. Furaha Asani Against the Academic PedestalEven 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
...2020-04-0233 min
PhDivasS5E8 | Let's Talk about #COVID19- Dr. Kishana TaylorDo 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/phdivaspodcast2020-03-1650 min
PhDivasS5E7 | Doing Science on her Own Terms- Conversation with Dr. Laura BoykinPhDivas 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/phdivaspodcast2020-03-0544 min
PhDivasS5E6 | Black Feminism in Britain: Jade Bentil & Paulette WilliamsThere 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...2020-02-201h 08
PhDivasS5E5 | On Asking for Help & Valuing Our Work; Launching a Patreon!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...2020-01-2423 min
PhDivasS5E4 | ON STRIKE! Collective Action for a Better UniversityJob 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...2019-12-0248 min
PhDivasS5E3 | Wellness Checkit'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...2019-11-2850 min
PhDivasS5E2| Consent & Colonialism in Art: Khairani Barokka on Disability and AestheticsIn 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...2019-10-2457 min
PhDivasS5E1 | The Price of Research: Dr. Elaine Westbrooks on Libraries and the Knowledge EconomyNone 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!2019-10-0359 min
PhDivasS04E22 | #NewProf Now What? Pt 2: What About Our Loved Ones?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?2019-08-1622 min
PhDivasS04E21 | #NewProf Now What? Pt 1: PhDiva Liz on New Fears, New ProfessionalismPhDiva 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.2019-07-3032 min
PhDivasS04E20 | Not Your Apolitical Asians: Rachel Kuo on the Asian American Feminist CollectiveAre 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...2019-05-3147 min
PhDivasS04E19 | No Degree Is Worth Your Soul: Ciarra Milan's Queer Womanist TheologyGrad 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...2019-04-3049 min
PhDivasS04E18 | Who is Scandalized by the Admissions Scandal? Interview with Maryam ToorawaWho 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...2019-03-2735 min
PhDivasS04E17 | Thinking of Applying to Grad School? PhDivas Advice for Humanities & STEMIt'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.2018-12-2048 min
PhDivasS04E16 | PhDivas Talk Tarot: QTPOC Occult in the Era of Secular ScienceWhy 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...2018-11-3050 min
PhDivasS4E15 | Poetry for Everyone (including you!): Anne Simpson on Workshops and WeightliftingPoetry 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 o...2018-10-2640 min
PhDivasS04E14 | Ethics of Ecology: Saori Ogura on Crops & Indigenous Knowledges in Zimbabwe & HimalayaHow 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 ec...2018-09-1351 min
PhDivasS04E13 | On Being in Public Pt 2: When Our Voices Make Us Into TargetsHere 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...2018-08-0227 min
PhDivasE04E12 | On Being in Public Pt 1: 3 Years of PhDivas! Lifting Others, Lifting OurselvesFrom 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-3o7abBphHJngINCHio2018-07-2638 min
PhDivasS04E11 | Diversity in the Geosciences: Hard Questions for Hard Sciences ft Sara Cannon, Leonora KingGeosciences 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...2018-06-1440 min
PhDivasS04E10 | Who Cares About Violence Against Muslim Students? Wajiha Mehdi on Student Protests in IndiaThe 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...2018-05-1815 min
PhDivasS04E09 | London Calling: PhDiva Xine Will Be a #NewProfPhDiva 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?"2018-04-2653 min
PhDivasS04E08 | Conjuring the Work of Words: E. Andrews & K. Sellinger Edit a Special Issue on BlacknessCreating 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...2018-03-301h 05
PhDivasS04E07 | Alaska Native Narratives: Interview with Indigenous Filmmaker & Writer Kavelina Torres"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 mo...2018-02-281h 05
PhDivasS04E06 | Who Gets Cited? Allyship & Alt-Right Attacks with Drs. Carrie Mott & Daniel CockayneWho 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...2018-01-1845 min
PhDivasS04E05 | Othello in America: Prof Brigitte Fielder on Race, American Studies, & AcademiaRace 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...2017-12-1453 min
PhDivasS04E04 | Dealing with Diaspora: Kiran Sunar on Punjabi LegaciesHow 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"...2017-11-1750 min
PhDivasS04E03 | Empowering Teen Girls of Color: Eden and Ellisa Oyewo of C.O.R.E. MagazineHow 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...2017-10-271h 04
PhDivasS04E02 | DREAMing of STEM: #DefendDACA Impacts Dory Castillo's Physicist Hopes & Science Teaching800,000 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...2017-09-2956 min
PhDivasS04E01 | Starting School After #Charlottesville: Dr. Jill Spivey Caddell on #SilentSam & MonumentsAfter 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...2017-09-011h 11
PhDivasS03E30 | Negative Results to Positive Outcomes: Dr. Erica Pratt on Struggles in ScienceWhat happens when your project fails? Dr. Erica Pratt, researcher at University of Texas MD Cancer Medical Center, talks about the bias against discussing negative results in science and the struggle to succeed as a nontraditional student. If you aren't what people expect a scientist to look like AND are rather modest, you need mentors to go the extra mile as coaches. We discuss Erica's trajectory from her undergrad at Carnegie Mellon, which required all undergrads in the new biomedical engineering to have a second engineering major *just to be safe*, to her current postdoc work on liquid biopsy in...2017-08-241h 24
PhDivasS03E29 | Animal Doctors/Human Medicine: Katti Horng on Vet School & HIV ResearchKatti Horng's path to studying HIV in the combined DVM/PhD degree at UC Davis began with a Chinese tradition for babies: infants are presented with objects symbolizing different professions to see what their futures will hold. PhDivas Xine and Liz talk to Katti about cow rectums, animal rights vs. animal welfare, and the difference between the cultures of professional and graduate degrees. We get a new perspective on sexism: even though women are now the majority in veterinary medicine, we learn that the gender gap is not so easily overcome. What does interdisciplinary medical research look like? Katti and...2017-08-031h 03
PhDivasS03E28 | Anti-Racist Student Activism and Its Aftermath: Interview with Kristi CareyStudent protests inspired by Black Lives Matter have swept across American universities. What did these undergraduate activists want? PhDiva Dr. Xine Yao interviews Kristi Carey, one of the leaders of the 2014-5 protests at Colgate University. Kristi and her fellow women of color activists organized in the wake of Michael Brown's killing to draw attention to systemic problems on campus and to demand real change from the university. Sit-ins, death threats, candle light vigils -- what has happened since this momentous unsettling in the name of making the corporate university a safer, more livable space for marginalized students? Kristi talks...2017-07-2044 min
PhDivasS03E27 | Can We Ever Take a Break?Summer vacation: when academics look forward to spending quality time... working on their research. Over the "holiday" weekend Liz and Xine talk about structuring their time and the unexpected emotional labour that comes when you do take a "break" only to frantically play catch-up on your personal life. We discuss the idea of breaks in a wider sense as well: figuring out strategic vulnerability, burning out because of social media, allowing ourselves to ask for help. How can we take a break from high expectations and over-achievement?2017-07-0749 min
PhDivasS03E26 | Decolonizing or Indigenizing the University? Interview with Sereana NaepiTo decolonize or Indigenize the university? Sereana Naepi, an Indigenous Pacific Islander, takes on this question through her doctoral studies in Education at UBC on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Musqueam people. PhDiva Xine interviews Sereana about Education as a discipline unto itself and how she brings Indigenous methodologies into her work on Indigenous women's experiences as higher ed staff. As a Fijian scholar from New Zealand, Sereana explains how her community and family inform her work: the PhD gives you a right to serve, not a right not to lead. In this episode, we discuss the...2017-06-191h 07
JobloguesEpisode 37: Higher Learning (with PhDivas)This week we're headed back to school! The PhDivas, Liz Wayne and Christine “Xine” Yao, join us to share gems on navigating careers in academia, STEM and the humanities as women of color. Plus, Cortney and Joymarie share perspectives on the pros and cons worth considering when pursuing an advanced degree.Follow the PhDivas:@phdivaspodcast | @LizWaynePhD | @yao_christineSend us your career & life questions:joblogues.com/askjoblogues | (929) 324-1090Follow us:@joblogues | @cleveoutloud | @heymissparkerr Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.2017-06-1647 min
PhDivasS03E25 | Surviving the Job Market, Setting Up a Lab: Interview with Dr. Nadia ChernyakIf you survived the academic job market, what comes next? Xine catches up with Dr. Nadia Chernyak who will be tenure-track at UC Irvine in the Cognitive Science department. Nadia does amazing research on cognitive and moral development in children, but as it turns out, nothing truly prepares you to be a #newprof. What is involved in setting up a lab, which could be described as running your own small startup?2017-06-0858 min
PhDivasS03E24 | #SavetheNEHWe want YOU to help #SavetheNEH. If Congress passes this budget, the National Endowment for the Humanities will be eliminated in 2018. What do we, as a society, stand to lose for savings of a mere .006% of the federal budget? Liz interviews Xine about the devastating impact this would have on the cultural, historical, artistic, and ethical lives of communities of every size everywhere in the US. The PhDivas share the specifics of the "human" in the "humanities." Xine put out a call for stories from academics who received funding from the NEH -- and in less than 24 hours, received an...2017-05-2647 min
PhDivasS03E23 | The Secret Life of Academic ConferencesConferences are like icebergs: there's a lot going on below the surface. We give you insight on the secret life of academic conferences. First, Liz and Xine cover the obvious considerations about STEM and humanities conferences. But in the majority of this episode we discuss the hidden dynamics: institutional privilege, social ecosystems, and how cliques make visible professional power dynamics. In some ways, academic conferences can be like a teen movie! You enter as an overwhelmed junior person trying to break into the scene and you hope to eventually become prom queen. Who do you eat your meals with? Can...2017-05-201h 12
PhDivasS03E22 | #TED2017: PhDiva Liz and Black ExcellenceHere's the inside scoop on #TED2017 in Vancouver from TED Fellow and PhDiva Dr. Liz Wayne who delivered a TED Talk about her research on cancer drug delivery. Xine interviews Liz about the application process, preparation process, and life-changing experience of the TED Conference. What is it like to take science communication to the next level? What entrepreneurs and creatives did Liz rub shoulders with? Congratulations to Liz on continuing to develop her black excellence!
Liz's TED Talk was highlighted as one of the Big Ideas of the first day of #TED2017: http://blog.ted.com/in-case-you-missed-it-the-big-ideas-from-day-1-of-ted2017/2017-05-1324 min
PhDivasS03E21 | April Showers: End of Semester StressApril is the cruelest month! It's a rough time in higher ed: originally our theme for this episode was just "being tired." Work, travel, bills, dying houseplants. We push through our exhaustion to talk about the musical Hamilton, Get Out, Ghost in the Shell, and that awful Pepsi commercial with Kendall Jenner. The PhDivas just came back from their visit to Earlham College where they gave talks on their individual research and on bridging the STEM/humanities divide. Connecting with students and our listeners helps to give us energy! ...but we still need to get enough sleep.
You can view...2017-04-0753 min
PhDivasS03E20 | Coming-of-Age in Academia: Interview with Brianda Beverley of Flyy ScienceOur latest guest Brianda is at a turning point: pursue a PhD in STEM or follow her dream of growing Flyy Science, which combines science communication with hip hop and style. This is a coming-of-age in academia episode that everyone can relate to! Liz and Xine chat with Brianda about her current work as a certified Medical Laboratory Scientist, the gap between STEM degrees and jobs, and the journey from realizing you love something to what it means to develop a career. Why don't kidneys get the same attention as hearts in popular culture? Brianda asks the PhDivas for advice...2017-03-131h 01
PhDivasS03E19 | Black Child Joy: Black History Month Recap with Prof Danielle MorganBlack child joy is a fundamental reason Black History Month needs to exist. We recap Black History Month 2017 with Danielle Morgan, Assistant Professor of English at Santa Clara University, from Beyonce's pregnancy with twins to Moonlight, Fences, and Hidden Figures at the Oscars. The figure of the Black child is important to address beyond sentimentality: Danielle and Liz explain to Xine what celebrating Black History Month meant to them as children. How do we make space for respecting all forms of black excellence?
Danielle's piece on Black History Month for Al-Jazeera: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2017/02/black-history-month-criticism-170210113100632.html2017-03-0254 min
PhDivasS03E18 | Not Just in February: Black History Month Interview with Prof Mari CrabtreeThis week we have a double episode release for Black History Month! Historian Mari N. Crabtree is Assistant Professor of African American Studies at the College of Charleston and works on lynching, narrativity, and memory in the South. She researches and teaches Black history not far from Emanuel AME Church, the site of the massacre committed by Dylann Roof, and in South Carolina, where Bree Newsome took down the Confederate flag from the state capitol grounds. We talk with Professor Crabtree about how the past collapses into the present amidst the protests against and counter-protests for Bree Newsome's talk at...2017-02-271h 37
PhDivasS03E17 | Intersectionality in Science: Interview with Prof Sarah RichardsonWhat do power, society, and ideology have to do with science? PhDiva Liz Wayne interviews Associate Professor Sarah Richardson, speaker at the 2017 Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics at Harvard. Professor Richardson's research uses a multidisciplinary approach to analyze how scientists understand sex and gender. In this episode, she discusses her interdisciplinary journey through history, philosophy, genetics, and feminism. Richardson challenges us to go beyond the 'Women in STEM" pipeline inclusion model. What if biology doesn't determine gender, but gender -- and other forms of difference -- can change biology? In this conversation Liz and Professor Richardson talk about making...2017-02-1752 min
PhDivasS03E16 | Muslim Fictions: Interview with Dr. Noor HashemMuslim fictions and fictions about Muslims: we talk politics, stereotypes, and histories with Dr. Noor Hashem, expert on Muslim American literature. What are the ordinary, everyday, boring lives of Muslims in the United States? What is it like to be a person of faith in the academy and how does it inform one's work? Noor, Xine and Liz discuss points of intersection, activism, and ethical emotions. If tough love isn't doing it, what do we need? We end with a more recent interview with Dr. Noor to discuss the #MuslimBan and the heartening support for activism in Boston.
Council on...2017-02-101h 07
PhDivasS03E15 | Whose Science? Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics at HarvardPreparations for the Science March on Washington are underway! Whose science is it anyway? Liz brings us a group interview with aspiring physicists from the 2017 Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics at Harvard. We get insight into how these young women are inspired to study different aspects of physics: from Instagram selfies to engineering to parental guidance to the thrill of knowing the wonders of the universe. How do you transition from a childhood love to your professional path? Xine and Liz frame this interview with questions about politics and intersectionality as part of the plans of the upcoming Science...2017-01-2744 min
PhDivasS03E13 | Hip Hop Scholarship: Interview with Dr. Shahara'Tova V. DenteCrystal Springs, Mississippi: two girls graduated from their small town high school and grew up to be Dr. Shahara'Tova "Shaye" Dente, English PhD, and our own Dr. Liz Wayne, TED Fellow. Shaye gives us insight into the research and teaching of hip hop, social movements, and hip hop literature. Xine and Liz interview Shaye about pipeline programs for underrepresented minorities to the question of what makes good literature. We talk Jay-Z, Drake, Meek Mill, Nicki Minaj, Lil' Kim, Iggy Azalea -- and whether the vampires of Twilight suck. What does it mean to teach African American literature in the South...2017-01-131h 17
PhDivasS03E12 | New Year's Resolutions 2017Think positive, not punitive. How can we make resolutions that are not just individually-oriented? Make resolutions shared with friends, nominate good people for awards, buy a coffee/tea/drink/lunch for someone junior. We are trained in critique and then forget how compliments feed the human self. Xine and Liz are committed to making sure they lift others as they climb! The PhDivas are also dedicated to their own different approaches to body positivity -- but they're both aiming for unassisted pull-ups.
Oh, and Xine's theme song for the year is DMX's "X Gon' Give It to Ya." (Get it...2017-01-0653 min
PhDivasS03E11 | End of 2016 ReviewOn New Year's Eve we go meta and reflect on our best moments, interviews, behind-the-scenes production, and the melanin contrast between us in our promo photos thanks to the inadequacies of phototechnology. We discuss what it means for us to be in public while academics are under attack in this post-Steven Salaita moment. How do we talk to each other in seminar, in question period, in our citations? As we climb, let's not forget to lift each other.
Thank you to our amazing interviewees and the support of our listeners!2016-12-3147 min
PhDivasS03E10 | Dark Matter: Axions Cosmology & Being a Black Scientist; Dr. Chanda Prescod-WeinsteinWould a Black physicist have called it "dark matter"? Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein is the 63rd Black American woman to earn a PhD in physics and works on early universe cosmology and the dark matter problem. Xine and Liz talk to Chanda about the mysteries of the universe and the differing conundrums of being Black in the United States versus Canada. Literature emerges as a necessary form of education and survival -- shout out to the writings of Lawrence Hill and Langston Hughes! We discuss Star Trek, dissertation dedications, Janelle Monae, and the ambiguous worth of "diversity" in science and academia...2016-12-021h 17
PhDivasS03E09 | Data is Us: Interview with Rumman ChowdhuryBlaming biased data and bad algorithms? Stop moral outsourcing to machines because data is a reflection of us! Liz and Xine interview Rumman Chowdhury, PhD candidate in political science and a full-time data scientist. We talk about how ethics, diversity, and social justice play an integral part in data, dubious robots, and the uneven development of data science through industry and academia. Beyond tin foil hats, we discuss everything from racist redlining in Chicago, philosopher Hannah Arendt's concept of the banality of evil, Netflix's Luke Cage, and menstruation apps. How can we approach data in a way that is not...2016-11-2454 min
PhDivasS03E08 | Nasty Women: Hillary Clinton and the Question of CritiqueNasty, sassy, bossy -- how do we criticize women? And how can we articulate valid criticisms without being accused of misogyny? In this pre-election conversation, Liz and Xine discuss Hillary Clinton, gender, and the politics of representation and, well, politics! Is it just about Hillary, or also a post-Obama moment that has transformed our ideas about hope and change? We talk political compromise, respectability, US imperialism, histories of suffrage and race, and the power of memes.
Since recording this conversation, we've been in a difficult place: trying to look after ourselves and others we care about on top of our...2016-11-181h 01
PhDivasS03E07 | For Women, By Women: Insecure, Broad City, and GirlsInsecure, Broad City, and Girls: shows for and by women! These are shows that Liz and Xine watch as part of their lives as *serious* academics and researchers. What is the appeal? Well, we are still part of the much maligned Millennial generation. The PhDivas discuss how these female creators explore the trials and tribulations of work and love as Millennial women. What racial and gender barriers still exist despite the DIY innovations of Issa Rae, Lena Dunham, and Abbi and Ilana? We evaluate the first episode of Insecure, 5 seasons of Girls, and 3 seasons of Broad City -- talking about...2016-11-0447 min
PhDivasS03E06 | Mighty Morphing: Interview with SammusHip hop artist and producer, video game heroine, PhD candidate -- how cool and brilliant can one person be? We talk to Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo who performs under the stage name Sammus, a reference to Samus Aran of Metroid who is the first woman game protagonist. She studies gender and music production through Science and Technology Studies and is also a noted nerdcore rapper who has performed at SXSW, Geek Girl Con, PAX East. We talk about Kanye West, Nintendo, questions of representation, in geekdom and the intersection of humanities and STEM. Sammus has also been a great champion for Black...2016-10-201h 08
PhDivasS03E05 | Adjunct Life with Dr. Shyla SaltzmanWait, isn't getting a PhD supposed to set you up with a cushy professor job? We talk to Dr. Shyla Saltzman about the increasing phenomenon of PhDs ending up in adjunct positions -- temporary, underpaid, underresourced teaching positions. This episode is about the stresses of the adjunct life, the corporatization of the university, as well as a unglamorous side of alt-ac jobs. After fun and laughter as we commiserate about shared experiences as people of color, Shyla gives us a deeply personal, honest account of her struggles after graduation. Together we discuss the conditions of precarity that threatens higher ed...2016-10-131h 07
PhDivasS03E04 | The Final Countdown: Getting Ready for the Final PhD YearsHow does one complete a doctorate? Xine and Liz dispel myths about individual "grit" and "productivity" to talk about structural and psychological barriers to finishing the degree. Lack of resources, social norms, and administrative pressures on time-to-degree can all exacerbate the final years as a graduate student -- and we can internalize these problems as personal failures. While it's true that the best dissertation is a done dissertation -- and there's no such thing as a perfect one -- we also discuss how much can depend on your adviser. It's about managing relationships, where committee members are in their careers...2016-10-0637 min
PhDivasS03E03 | Science + Art = Super Cool Scientists! Interview with Sara MacSorleyArt meets science = promoting women in science! Sara MacSorley of Wesleyan University is the creator of Super Cool Scientists, a Kickstarter project to create a coloring book featuring a diverse group of current women scientists. (Our own Liz Wayne is one of them!) We talk with Sara about what it means to support science as a non-scientist as well as community engagement and outreach through higher education. We are also excited about Hidden Figures and other media promoting histories of women in science -- Super Cool Scientists is about supporting current women in science and the coloring book medium is...2016-09-2937 min
PhDivasS03E02 | Postdoc AppreciationIt's Postdoc Appreciation Week! But what are postdocs anyway and how do they differ between STEM and the humanities? What comes after the dissertation? Liz is now an NIH postdoc at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, while Xine is a SSHRC postdoc in Vancouver at the University of British Columbia. In this episode we talk about our new postdoc lives on different sides of the continent. We break down the differences between postdocs in different disciplines and the role that postdocs play in the current structure of academia. Increasingly, people are having to go through not just one, but...2016-09-2236 min
PhDivasS03E01 | Why You Should Postdoc: Interview with Dr. Catharine YoungWait, getting your PhD is not enough?! From scientist to science policy -- Liz Wayne talks to Dr. Catharine Young about alt-ac from the STEM side, developing skills from a postdoc in biomedical sciences to her current position as the Science and Innovation Policy Adviser for the British Embassy. Our different experiences in academia open us to new possibilities and equally legitimate ways to love the subject we study. Turns out that having a PhD is not enough for a job in 2016, even after all we've accomplished! Through the American Association for the Advancement of Science fellowship, Dr. Young traveled...2016-09-0838 min
PhDivasS02E13 | Writing for the Public: Alt-Ac Interview with Meredith TalusanFrom seminar papers to pieces for The Guardian -- how do we write for the public and how can our graduate training prepare us for non-academic work? Meredith Talusan is BuzzFeed's first openly trans LGBT staff writer and was a PhD in comparative literature. We interview Meredith about what it means to be a professional trans woman in the media and writing for different audiences. How do we balance the complexity of our expertise with the necessity for simplicity in communication? If we're at the "tipping point" of trans issues, what battles must be fought against transmisogyny? How do we...2016-09-011h 20
PhDivasS02E12 | The Adviser's Point-of-View: Interview with Professor Shirley Samuels"YOU'RE the professor?!" What happens after the first day of teaching through to tenure and full professorship on top of positions as a program director and department chair? We talk to Xine Yao's Cornell PhD adviser Shirley Samuels about her 30+ year career journey as an acclaimed scholar of American literature, feminism, and visual culture. Shirley gives us her view of changes in the profession as a whole as well as the continued relevance of American studies as politics and education come together. Liz and Xine ask how do you advise graduate students given the current academic job market? How do...2016-08-201h 02
PhDivasS02E11 | Being a Woke White Guy: Interview with Phil BurnhamIf you have every kind of privilege, how do you #staywoke? The PhDivas talk to their physicist friend Philip Smith Burnham III, a white upper-middle class straight cisman who is a staunch ally. How do you offer support without being a self-important savior? We discuss how to listen, the long, slow process of awareness, and how privilege should be leveraged as an asset for change and not just a source of guilt. An aspiring astronaut who is sometimes mistaken for a frat guy, Phil talks about the relationship between Indigenous ways of knowing, Cherokee basket weaving, and developing better scientific...2016-07-221h 00
PhDivasS02E10 | Inside Higher Education: Interview with Erica OstermannMeet the real-life Leslie Knope: Erica Ostermann is an Assistant Dean plus a full-time graduate student in Information Science. From Bowdoin, to Stanford, to Cornell, Erica is former boss to Liz and Xine (as well as activist Deray McKesson of #BlackLivesMatter!) She is possibly the most organized, driven person we know. But accidents are still important -- how do we take moments of randomness or even injury and make them into learning experiences? How do we find balance between our Type A tendencies and need for self-care? Get a new perspective on student life, accessibility, and building a healthy team...2016-07-071h 06
PhDivasS02 Special Episode | Graduation!Graduation! PhDiva Xine Yao was chosen as the baton-wielding degree marshal representing all graduating PhDs at Cornell for the 2016 Commencement. As a gesture of solidarity, she raised her fist when entering the stadium and on stage where it would be projected on the Jumbotron and recorded for posterity. Is Xine the "modelliest model minority ever" and can she try to use her visibility for good causes? Drs. Liz and Xine talk about struggle, success, privilege, and vulnerability amidst the pomp and circumstance of graduation. Xine met the amazing Paula Vogel who was kicked out of her PhD in the 70s...2016-06-2435 min
PhDivasS02E09 | Teaching While Women of Color: Part 2How can we teach and care for our students in ways we are still learning to do for ourselves? It's not just about content, lessons, and assignments -- it's also about vulnerability and emotional labor. Join us for the laughter, tips, and anecdotes in the second part of a two-part series where Xine brings together Mariana Alarcon, Elizabeth Alexander, Aurora Masum-Javed, and Renia White from the Cornell English PhD and MFA programs for a lively conversation about teaching while WOC. We talk about the rewards of teaching, negotiating our authorities in the classroom, and developing our teaching personae. How do...2016-06-0947 min
PhDivasS03E08 | Teaching While Women of Color: Part 1Grades are in, teaching evaluations are in! Who is being judged and how? Women, people of color, and especially women of color (WOC) have the most to fear about how their teaching and authority are evaluated. In the first of a two-part series, Xine brings together Mariana Alarcon, Elizabeth Alexander, Aurora Masum-Javed, and Renia White from the Cornell English PhD and MFA programs for a lively conversation about teaching while WOC. Join these women as they discuss topics from being seen as "too racially affliated" to whether our students should be "baby revolutionaries" to teaching microaggressions and Serena Williams in...2016-05-2646 min
PhDivasS02E07 | Imposter Syndrome & Other AnxietiesDo you ever feel like you don't belong? Imposter syndrome names the feeling of being out of place that even successful people can experience -- and this is widespread in all levels of the academy. But when can we have anxieties as women of color that might not be about being an imposter? There's so much about power and structural inequality, from the brand power of schools to academic credentials to how performances of intelligence are recognized according to norms of race and gender. Liz was the only black person -- not to mention black woman -- doing her undergrad...2016-05-1344 min
PhDivasS02E06 | Imposter Syndrome - TeaserEnd of the semester struggle is so real! This is a teaser for our upcoming discussion about imposter syndrome in academia. Good luck to all of you! Thrive and survive! 2016-05-0609 min
PhDivasS02E05 | International Students: The Silent Majority (Interview with Dr. Michelle Tong)International grad students are the majority, but why don't we hear from them? We chat with Dr. Michelle Tong about visas, labor precarity, culture shock, and stereotypes about the model minority and alienness. This ep includes discussions of the dynamics of scientific methods. Michelle just earned her PhD in psychology working on smells and memory; in her words, she can't diagnose you but "would have to take out your brain and slice it." Together we reflect on the blurred lines between our research and ourselves.2016-04-2152 min
PhDivasS02E04 | Black Girl Humor: Interview with Dr. Danielle MorganJoin us in laughing at the absurdity of a so-called postracial world! We sip some tea with Danielle Morgan and chat about race and humor, #BlackGirlMagic, and navigating graduate school as a women of color with a family. Danielle just earned her PhD in English with a project about comedy and satire in African American culture and literature (congrats!). We talk about race, intent, and audience in Hamilton the musical and the work of Dave Chappelle and Aziz Ansari. There's also the #BlackGirlMagic of women like Ava DuVernay, Michelle Obama, Beyonce, and so many others. What considerations go into finding...2016-04-141h 00
PhDivasS02E03 | The Trap Of OverachievementSo you're used to being "the smart one." How does our pursuit of success have its pitfalls? In a guest lecture for a Cornell course on "A Life Worth Living," we talk about how we define success and how that drive feeds into problematic ideas about meritocracy and respectability. Competition can become an all-consuming mentality: it's not just about our worth as individuals but our relationship to communities and our burdens of representation. Liz addresses the pressures surrounding her identity as a proud Black woman from Mississippi with a passion for physics, while Xine reflects on her love of literature...2016-04-081h 02
PhDivasS02E02 | Spring Renewal -- and RejectionSpring is a time of renewal -- and also rejection according to the academic calendar. So. Much. Rejection: grad schools, fellowships, postdocs, jobs, publications -- all come rolling in, sometimes with a little bit of success thrown in. Track records of academic success obscure every level of academia is filled with what feels like different forms of failure. It's damn hard not to internalize. Liz and Xine try to balance celebrating individual successes for ourselves and others, allowing space for pity parties, and building community solidarity. How do we accept ourselves in the face of rejection? We help pick each...2016-03-3159 min
PhDivasS02E01 | It Happens Here: Sexual Assault in AcademiaIt happens here: we start our second season by helping the whisper network speak up about sexual harassment and assault in academia. The Hunting Ground documentary has brought attention to sexual assault on US campuses and there are now high profile cases about sexual harassment experienced by grads in astronomy and philosophy. We interview Anna Waymack, grad student and advocate, about issues with the current system of academia writ large. Please support institutional and cultural change! We are using the nightingale as our image for this episode in reference to the horrific ancient myth about Philomela who was silenced by...2016-03-2448 min
PhDivasS01E28 | Friendship as Activism: Keynote"But my best friend is ____!" What if this common phrase was treated as more than an excuse for bigotry, but as an ethical imperative for allyship and activism? Liz and Xine were invited to give their first keynote, "Friendship as Activism," for the Agency and Solidarity Conference at Cornell. We talk respectability politics; our studies, ourselves; diversity, activism, and service in the academy; and self-care and survival.
Oh, and the keynote was covered by The Cornell Daily Sun and we were called "race, gender, and sexuality activists." Ha! We wouldn't really describe ourselves that way. Your thoughts?
"Graduate Students Urge...2016-03-1751 min
PhDivasS01E27 | Are Grad Students Workers? Interview with Jack FrostAre graduate students workers? Liz and Xine explore this debate by interviewing Jackqueline Frost from Cornell Graduate Students United. We discuss issues of graduate student labor at Cornell and higher education in general -- power dynamics, fear, funding, and differences between humanities and STEM in approaches to work and work dynamics. Should graduate students of the world unite? Do we have nothing to lose but our chains?2016-03-1058 min
PhDivasS01E26 | Xine Does the Vagina Monologues"BANG" -- Xine fired her confetti gun and then sauntered off-stage to applause of a thousand people. The Vagina Monologues are a perennial cultural touchstone on many college campuses for women's advocacy. Xine and Liz talk about the power and problems of the play. How can we affirm bodies and womanhood without excluding issues of race or trans women from the conversation? What kind of responses do we get from cis men and how can we encourage them to be supportive allies?
Xine is proud to be a part of Cornell's student-run cast. All proceeds went to the Advocacy Center...2016-02-2546 min
PhDivasS01E25 | Leave Of Absence: On Loss and HealingWhat happens when we experience loss in grad school? How do we find ways to heal and to remember when our time is so structured by quantifiable successes and milestones? The leave of absence disrupts this timeline and people will judge you for taking it and others will condemn you for not doing it. Liz and Xine take this episode to discuss mental health and to mourn their loved ones through both intangible memories and tangible mementos. From jade necklaces to laundry to an extra winter coat, what do we keep or let go when we lose someone?2016-02-1835 min
PhDivasS01E22 | Makeup and ConsumerismTreat yourself! Xine and Liz talk about class and race in the consumerist makeup heaven that is Sephora. Lupita Nyong'o is now the face of Lancome, but our PhDivas have grown up struggling with representation in cosmetics. It's bittersweet finally being able to enter the rarefied realm of beauty... And as academics we're not supposed to care or talk about it.
(FYI Liz loves the Jardin perfume series from Hermes, while Xine's signature fragrance is Tom Ford Black Orchid and is now obsessed with Helmut Lang's Cuiron)2016-01-1438 min
PhDivasS01E15 | PhDivas on Divas: Why We Love Nicki Minaj‘‘I don’t care to speak to you anymore.’’ Nicki Minaj to her interviewer from New York Times magazine. (!)
Liz and Xine bow before the throne of Nicki Minaj and discuss her role in the current climate of pop culture, racial discourse, and feminism.2015-10-2934 min
PhDivasS01E01 | Women And IconsWho did the PhDivas look up to? Role models and possibility models.
Real Colored Girls' "The Problem with Beyhive Bottom Bitch Feminism": https://realcoloredgirls.wordpress.com/2013/12/15/the-problem-with-beyhive-bottom-bitch-feminism/2015-04-2231 min