Women in research

A new report shows that women’s progress in science has stalled over the past 15 years. While this won’t sound like news to many, I was shocked to read the statistic on how many women are Federation Fellows (8.5%). When you add that to other recent news stories, particularly with regard to the ongoing pay [...]

In unity

**We urgently need billets for the State of the Industry conference. There has been an amazing response from young interstate scholars wanting to come, and we’ve funded airfares for everyone we could, but some people won’t attend if they can’t get accommodation. Please let me know if you can offer a bed or a couch.** [...]

Active campuses

It’s great to see two big campaigns hitting campuses at the moment. Today’s rally for international students is a great initiative that deserves serious attention. We hear a lot about the value of the international student market to the national economy, which is why Julia Gillard is overseas right now at her most eloquent. But [...]

Privacy and work

Today’s class was about intimacy and privacy, and it drew on the work of Michael Warner and Michel Foucault to talk about publics, discourse, power and confession. We read Emily Nussbaum’s article, “Kids, the Internet and the end of Privacy” which argues that the generation gap between those who up with the internet and those [...]

Overload

Think your job is bad? Read this. Overload reports on “the role of work-volume escalation and micro-management of academic work patterns in loss of morale and collegiality at UWS.” Apart from highlighting the inadequacies of workload formulae across every level of academic life, it’s also one of the best reports I’ve read showing the impact [...]

Getting Desperate: Twitter on primetime

Last night’s episode of Desperate Housewives showed how far things have come: it included a scene that hinged on Tom’s lack of knowledge about Twitter, and hence his failure at a job interview. This shameful experience led to an extended subplot about whether or not Tom should get plastic surgery to disguise his age and [...]

Professional precarity, 1

This is a note to self, and to anyone who didn’t catch Mark Bousquet’s recent post on professionalism and academia. It really highlights how the sacrificial labour of academics helped to make voluntary labour commonplace beyond the campus, in turn contributing to a broader deterioration of professional status that can no longer be rewarded financially [...]

The State of the Industry: Initial program launch

Thanks to John, Angela, Graeme, Emily, Clif and Alison, it’s time to formally announce: The State of the Industry: The future for cultural research in the university 26th and 27th November 2009 The University of New South Wales, Kensington The State of the Industry is a two day conference that will discuss the future for [...]

Work cultures

C’s comment in the previous post illustrates much more effectively than I did the significance of addressing graduate futures. Surely the whole model of conference organisation that annual association conferences depend upon assumes an ongoing relationship with a department/university. How is it possible to nominate to organise a conference when you have no job security? [...]

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