I re-invent Myself

F, thirties, Germany. Humanities Postdoc. Working on leaving academia. Healing and growing. "I resolve now for joy." - Erica Jong 

[these-r-the-thoughts]

In associative allusion to Reformation Day on October 31, 2020, we – meaning Dr. Amrei Bahr, PD Dr. Kristin Eichhorn, and Dr. Sebastian Kubon – launched the campaign #95vsWissZeitVG on Twitter. It …

This is all true. 

This is the situation in German academia. 

And I can confirm as a first generation student that no one in my family understands these ‘idiosyncrasies’. It’ll be another year where I’ll go home for the holidays and relatives will ask (via Zoom this time) what the f*ck is wrong with me so I cannot land a permanent job, and why I do not leave if I am, indeed, such a bad academic... 

[quotemadness]

The best advice I’ve ever received: ‘no one else knows what they are doing either.

Charles Bukowski (via quotemadness)

[funnyjoke]

[these-r-the-thoughts]

The Academic Fixed-Term Contract Act gives higher education and research institutions a certain degree of flexibility with regard to fixed-term contracts. You can find all the key information here.

Find attached a link to the German ministry of research under which they explain the brilliancy and flexibility of German academia. 

It is a prime example of cynicism. Around 80% of academics have limited term contracts, and after 12 years, end up highly qualified and unemployed. 

No surprise there’s a shitstorm on Twitter. I’m sharing because friends from abroad find it hard to believe me when I tell them about the conditions under which we work.

[ivan-fyodorovich-deactivated202]

“What Can You Do with a History Degree?”

mostly watch people ignore your warnings

[thecollectibles]

Art by 红 糖

[academicssay]

[these-r-the-thoughts]

A personal account of abuse in academia that explores the challenges of openly naming abusers and how we discuss our experiences as…

I am sharing this because I’ve been threatened and followed at conferences or other academic events by men in the past, and I’ve received phone calls from men I met in academia who said they want to “f*ck me”; in one case someone followed me to my hotel room after a reading and I had to use violence to stop him from touching me inappropriately and without my consent.  

This person now holds a powerful position in my field. And I don’t. 

Nobody talks about this phenomenon either. And it’s time we do.

[historyfilia-deactivated2025061]

There are two ways to escape suffering. The first is easy for many: accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space.

Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities (via historyfilia)

[pascalcampion]

Doux pays de mon enfaaaaanceuuuu! #pascalcampion 

[earthstory]

airvuz

This drone video shows why Sri Lanka got the nickname the “Emerald Island.” 💚

#UnitedByDrone

[kxowledge]

“How are you?” Mary asks. “Fine, thanks. You?” She shrugs. How should I be, how should anyone be, in a world like this?

Michael Cunningham, The Hours (via kxowledge)

[these-r-the-thoughts]

Coping during the COVID-19: It starts with ABCDE but is up to U | OUP

For many of us, coping with teaching from home, often under lockdown conditions, against the backdrop of a global health crisis, is indeed traumatic.

[academicssay]

[these-r-the-thoughts]

COVID-19: A Feminist Killjoy’s Rant On Toxic Productivity In The Academy

The constant demand and supply of ‘productivity’ in academia, the thumb rule of survival: “publish or perish” is not only problematic but dangerously harmful.

... as some older colleagues in tenured positions say to me “And now you finally have time to get your work done.” 

Which, you know, is kind of absurd right now because online teaching, distance office hours and home office - meaning more than 100 e-mails per day - hardly leave me one minute to myself right now...

[mslizot]

How lucky we are That you can’t sell A poem, that it has No value. Might As well Give it away. That poem you love, That saved your life, Wasn’t it given to you?

A fragment from Gregory Orr’s Concerning the Book That Is the Body of the Beloved. (via mslizot)

[inkflowergarden]

Keep choosing love.