Graduate Students at Work

Exploited Scholars of Neoliberal Higher Ed

Edited by Tessa Brown

Series: Rethinking Careers, Rethinking Academia

Sales Date: February 28, 2023

320 Pages, 6.00 x 9.00 in

Paperback
9780700634071
Published: February 2023

$29.99

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eBook
9780700634088
Published: February 2023

Ebook version available from your favorite ebook retailer.

Hardcover
9780700635245
Published: February 2023

$79.99

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Description
Authors
Praise
Contents

“Brown’s collection captures the long road of labor exploitation that got us here as well as the unique challenges and opportunities graduate students face in the present moment. The authors explore the emotional, material, and intellectual consequences of capitalism in higher education, creating a vital resource for current and potential graduate students, for the labor organizers who support them, and for the teachers and administrators ready to be allies. This is both a scholarly and a narrative text, accessible and thought-provoking.”—Amy Lynch-Biniek, professor of English, Kutztown University
“The contributions Tessa Brown’s Graduate Students at Work: Exploited Scholars of Neoliberal Higher Ed makes to the field are significant. The book centers on the original research of current and recent graduate students rather than presenting them as other people’s participants, giving it an authority and an ethical gravitas I can’t applaud loudly enough. The primary research covers a huge range of territory where the all-too-often demands for ‘data’ stall advocacy efforts. I am profoundly grateful that this book exists.”—Seth Kahn, professor of English, West Chester University
“Recent world events have irreparably influenced how labor dynamics operate within different industries. Tessa Brown has pulled together a brilliant slate of contributors to collectively author a definitive exploratory text that (re)contextualizes graduate students as ‘entry-level academic laborers’ within contemporary higher education. Each original contribution to the book studies this overarching framing of work and labor, whether through empirical study, reflective essay, or commentary. Moreover, the authors present exhaustive rebuttals and thoughtful analyses that dismantle many academic leaders’ and policymakers’ understanding of graduate students as ‘only’ students. This volume is important reading for any person considering, guiding, or participating in higher education and hoping to transform the field in ways that better recognize, compensate, and value the individuals that are doing the essential work that perpetuates the best version of what higher education can be in a society.”—Demetri L. Morgan, associate professor of higher education, Loyola University Chicago

Introduction: Graduate Students are Hyper-Exploited, Tessa Brown

Part I: Labor at the Margins

Interlude 1. Levels to This Sh*t: Layers of Graduate Student Labor, Khadeidra Billingsley

1. “I Have to Go Wherever There’s an Opportunity”: Graduate Students’ Experiences of Placelessness and Writing, Charlotte Kupsh and Zoe McDonald

Interlude 2. Invisible Marginalization in Academia, Samah Elbelazi

Interlude 3. Invisible Labors and Entangled Emergence, Andrew Hollinger

2.“Like I’m ‘The Man’”: Graduate Student Administrators’ Experiences, Talinn Phillips, Paul Shovlin, and Megan Titus

Interlude 4. The Ethics of Progressive Internships, Meagan Gacke-Reed

3. “It’s Dangerous to Go Alone”: Explorations of Unbalanced Labor and Mentorship in a Blended Learning Doctoral Program, April Cobos and Megan Mize

Part II: The Labor of Teaching and Research

4. Will This Take Me Anywhere? Investing Time in Graduate Student Teaching, Elliot Shapiro

Interlude 5. Establishing Ethos for a Translingual GTA—The Unwritten Labor, Anis Rahman

5. Learning to Teach, Teaching to Learn, Sara Austin and Kelly Moreland

Interlude 6. Mothering and Laboring as a Graduate Student and Teacher, Alma Villanueva

Interlude 7. Parenting while Researching? It Takes Support, Kid-Friendly Systems, and a Lot of Luck, Jacqueline M. Kory-Westlund

Part III: The Labor of “Professionalization”

Interlude 8. The Professoriate Is a Job, Sarah Welsh

6. Scholar-Selves in the Managerial University: The Hidden Labor of Disciplinary Identity Formation in the Doctoral Journey, Adam Haley

Interlude 9. Ethically Honoring Graduate Student Expertise through Joy Projects Conclusion: The Future of the Neo-Confederate Museum, Jaclyn Fiscus-Cannaday and Allison Hutchison

7. Chinese Doctoral Students’ Perceptions of Employability in the United States: cultivating Preparedness for a Challenging World, Xueshuang Wang, Weiyan Xiong, and Huiyuan Ye

Part IV: Organizing Labor

Interlude 10. Paying to Teach: A Profile of California State University System English Department Graduate Teaching Associate Programs, Martha Althea Webber

8. “Fees Are Wage Theft”: Graduate Labor Unions Confronting the Neoliberal University, Jonathan Isaac

Interlude 11. A How-To guide for Combating the Invisibility of Graduate Student Parents, Alex Hanson

9. “We’ll Be Taking This with Us”: Relationality and Idealism in Three Graduate Student Locals, Anicca Cox

Afterword: Striking for a Safer Campus Community, Kalena Thomhave and Matt Sehrsweeney

About the Contributors

Index

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Graduate Students at Work

Exploited Scholars of Neoliberal Higher Ed

Graduate Students at Work

Exploited Scholars of Neoliberal Higher Ed

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