Allison Harbin, PhD

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Discussion Guide to January 28th's Fireside Chat: How to Transgress the University

Allison Harbin

Why is it necessary to transgress the university? When do pragmatic career next steps as an alt-academic become a thought revolution? How do we re-imagine ourselves beyond the university?

In this post: I pose a discourse about the adjunct crisis, and the larger systemic educational crisis we are currently in, and ponder on the differences our generation of thinkers can make for the next.
Next week: I am posing the most common concerns this month to an impressive cast of alt-academics, current professors, post-docs, and graduate students to join Post-PhD in a live fireside chat.
Last week: A brief annotated bibliography featuring my receipts for the January 2022 essay "What is the Subversive Intellectual," recommendations, and further reading.

Dear co-conspirators,

I'm chuffed to announce Post-PhD's first-ever live fireside chat! (See event details here) For zoom link + details scroll all the way to the bottom of this here post.

Join Allison Harbin (me) and guest speakers on January 28th at 5:30 PM EST!

In this fireside chat, we hope to broach both the theoretical and the ruthlessly pragmatic of what it means to be an intellectual beyond the confines and hegemony of the university structure?

  • (read: what the fuck do we do outside of academia with our training?)

  • When do pragmatic next steps become a thought revolution?

  • How do we reimagine ourselves?

I've managed to wrangle an impressive cast of alt-academics as well as current professors, post-docs, and graduate students. In true seminar fashion, I'll introduce the speakers and the topic, and then open it up for discussion. 

Through these discussion guides for the fireside chats, I hope to limn a deeper understanding of what it means to be an activist-scholar in today’s digital smorgasbord, and how to support and build a community grounded in forms of scholarly activism.

On January 28th, we'll be discussing the most common concerns I've heard this month:

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  1. The Adjunct Crisis (Why we must transgress the university)

  2. What the Fuck to Do After Academia (What is the role of the public intellectual today?

  3. What the Fuck to Do WITH Academia (How do we begin to repair? What do we owe the future?)

Around these three topics, we'll each discuss our own journey as public intellectuals, what we feel our ethical obligation to the university is, and cold hard facts and pragmatic advice for those of us in this same state of flux. 

"It is in this liminal space that feels like you’re just waiting for things to get better, or until something works, that you have the psychological space to re-imagine your life, your identity, your work, and how you want to make a living."

- "The Radical Pragmatism of the Subversive Intellectual," by Allison Harbin.

The goal behind these conversations is first to create a video archive, to document, trace, and explore what happens when subversive intellectuals come together to discuss resistance, social justice, and radical epistemologies. (what  Harney calls “the with and for” and what allows you to spend less time antagonized and antagonizing." (Read more about this in "Towards Imagining the Undercommons: Reimagining the Role of the Intellectual Today," Post-PhD's December 2021 essay).

I hope you'll consider joining us, either as an audience participant or as a casual listener. 

Follow along & join us:

Why We Must Transgress the University:

What do we do, as scholars, beyond academia?

How do we begin to repair the university/ what do we owe the future?

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