A Sneak Peak of What I'm Working On
Exciting things are in the works for Not Safe for School-- and a NEW long-form semimonthly newsletter for Post-PhD dedicated to issues in higher education. Stay tuned.
Dear friends and fam,
Greetings from the past! As you read this, I’m in the midst of a self-imposed lockdown to finally send queries to agents, the first step in the long process of getting my book on white saviors in education in print. Academics and writers can probably sympathize with me here-- it is so hard to know when you are “done” with work, and when “it’s time” to put your writing out in the world. Especially when you are mildly neurotic and have strong perfectionist leanings.
Here’s my elevator pitch for the book, which I’m sure many of you have already guessed (y'all are the first to hear this, beyond my writing group and editor friends): Right now, it's a narrative nonfiction collection of stories about my former students and our struggle to create a safe classroom space in a "no excuses" and extremely corrupt charter school. In the end, all of the research paled in comparison to the power of my students' words and experiences. This marks a bit of an exciting departure from pure expository writing for me (think, "Why I Left Academia," but make it racial justice). It’s a narrative book in the vein of recent publications on white supremacy and its devastating impact for all of us: like Sum of Us by Heather McGhee and White Tears/Brown Scars by Ruby Hamad (to give two book comps I'm including the pitch). I decided to show the reality of inequity and bust the myth of white saviors in education through stories that focus on the lives and experiences of my former students. I wanted their voices to be front and center, and to really show the reader what is possible when we all embrace the possibility of Black futures.
I cannot express my gratitude to all of my readers, both old and new, who have been along for the inarguably wild ride of this newsletter finding its footing, voice, and audience. I am so excited to share with you everything I’ve been furtively (and somewhat secretly) working on for the past year, and continue this dialog about whiteness, racism, and systemic exploitation of free market ideology (yeah, yeah, it’s always about neoliberalism, but srsly, it is).
However, I am most grateful for my fellow academic exiles out there, those of you who’ve been reading since Post-PhD first went viral, as well as those of you who have recently written to me after finding my website in the throws of existential googling of what the f to do outside of academia. Which is why… I’m so excited to announce that Post-PhD is coming back!
Click here to read more about Post-PhD 2.0 and subscribe!
For the next three weeks, I’ll be sending you pre-recorded missives as I get ready to launch Post-PhD 2.0 and hopefully secure a goddamn agent looking for narrative nonfiction about social justice and white saviors (hmu if you know one :P ). It’ll be a semi-monthly long form newsletter about finding meaning in your work beyond academia. It’s going to be part narrative-nonfiction accounts of my own clusterf*ck of an experience finding employment with an art history PhD, of all ludicrous things. I’ll sprinkle in interviews with some amazing scholars I’ve been fortunate to meet through the spider-web of academics and alt-academics who’ve reach out to me over the past four years. Basically, Post-PhD 2.0 is going to be the resource I wish I had had when I was younger and more spry. Because a woman’s gotta eat, I’ll be charging $6/mo for this missive,* which I’m assuming means a smaller audience than Not Safe for School, so I’ll get to be more… well… “me” in it.
NSFS: Not Safe for School, your snark-filled antidote to racism and corruption in education. Follow @postphdtheblog on Twitter and @allisonharbin_postphd on Instagram
I’m looking forward to a more intimate space to talk about all things academia and higher education, and I’m especially looking forward to your feedback-- if you are a jaded academic of any stripe, lmk what you’d like to read about (you can just reply to this email, I’ll get back to you as soon as I emerge from my isolation chamber).
What this means for Not Safe for School:
It’s going to get some botox and tucks here and there and come back swinging with a more focused emphasis on the role of white people in education and in social justice initiatives writ large-- what we can do, what we should do, and what we should bow out of. Starting in August, NSFS will be exploring everything about this short and brand new book by UK author Emma Dabiri: What White People Can Do Next: From Allyship to Coalition.
Next week, I'll dive into just how much I love this book, and just how helpful it can be for all of us.
I bought it over the weekend, read it in a day, and decided to devote a month or so of Not Safe for School Posts exploring it, and creating a “how to” of sorts.
At any rate, THANK YOU READERS, Y’ALL ARE MY O.G. (as my students say, but tbh, I’m not sure I’m using that phrase right because I’m really just a giant nerd)
Until next week, keep f*cking shit up for me.
-Allison
Similar Posts about Activism in Education:
What the Republicans have used to fear-monger and rabble-rouse whites naturally signals what I’d like to take as a moment of hope for the U.S: the more we educate all people, most especially Black and peoples of color, the brighter our collective futures will be.