Political/Social Action: Negotiating Complicated Work Spaces (A Roundtable)
Sponsoring Organization(s)
Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship (SMFS)
Organizer Name
Jennifer C. Edwards
Organizer Affiliation
Manhattan College
Presider Name
Jennifer C. Edwards
Paper Title 1
Medievalist on the Island: Negotiating International Work Spaces
Presenter 1 Name
Christine E. Kozikowski
Presenter 1 Affiliation
College of the Bahamas
Paper Title 2
On Mentoring
Presenter 2 Name
Clare Monagle
Presenter 2 Affiliation
Monash Univ.
Paper Title 3
A Complicated Second Life in Academia
Presenter 3 Name
Erin L. Jordan
Presenter 3 Affiliation
Old Dominion Univ.
Paper Title 4
What's a Working-Class Girl to Do? Negotiating Gender and Class as a Junior Faculty Member
Presenter 4 Name
Lynn Arner
Presenter 4 Affiliation
Brock Univ.
Presenter 5 Name
Nahir I. Otaño Gracia
Presenter 5 Affiliation
Univ. of Pennsylvania
Start Date
15-5-2015 3:30 PM
Session Location
Valley III Stinson Lounge
Description
Medieval Feminists at Work: Negotiating Complicated Workspaces (A Roundtable
The academic community creates a fraught and challenging workplace, with the overlapping of working, social, and personal relationships whose boundaries are not always clear, consistent, or mutually acknowledged. Expectations for undergraduates, graduate students, adjuncts, junior and senior faculty, and administrators vary by institutional culture and across the academic lifecycle. The inherent power dynamics of the academic system--wherein faculty train students, tenured faculty evaluate and determine the fate of untenured colleagues, administrators control funds and access, and undergraduate complaints compromise adjunct careers—create a perfect environment for bullying, harassment (sexual or otherwise), and abuse, particularly when complicating factors such as race, sex, disability, and age are involved. Anecdotally in personal communication, persistently in the forums of The Chronicle of Higher Education, in the #YesAllWomen twitter movement, academic women identify themselves as vulnerable to gross manipulations of power within these dynamics. Yet, despite the increase in institutional mechanisms to deal with abuse, many female academics find it impractical, even career suicide, to formally complain about these problems. Medievalists, moreover, are often the only premodern specialist in their department or even campus and so lack the community support of other fields. Panelists on this roundtable will examine the complications medievalist women have experienced in the academic workplace as well as feminist methods for addressing issues and creating a safe, healthy, and functioning workspace.
Dorothy Kim
Political/Social Action: Negotiating Complicated Work Spaces (A Roundtable)
Valley III Stinson Lounge
Medieval Feminists at Work: Negotiating Complicated Workspaces (A Roundtable
The academic community creates a fraught and challenging workplace, with the overlapping of working, social, and personal relationships whose boundaries are not always clear, consistent, or mutually acknowledged. Expectations for undergraduates, graduate students, adjuncts, junior and senior faculty, and administrators vary by institutional culture and across the academic lifecycle. The inherent power dynamics of the academic system--wherein faculty train students, tenured faculty evaluate and determine the fate of untenured colleagues, administrators control funds and access, and undergraduate complaints compromise adjunct careers—create a perfect environment for bullying, harassment (sexual or otherwise), and abuse, particularly when complicating factors such as race, sex, disability, and age are involved. Anecdotally in personal communication, persistently in the forums of The Chronicle of Higher Education, in the #YesAllWomen twitter movement, academic women identify themselves as vulnerable to gross manipulations of power within these dynamics. Yet, despite the increase in institutional mechanisms to deal with abuse, many female academics find it impractical, even career suicide, to formally complain about these problems. Medievalists, moreover, are often the only premodern specialist in their department or even campus and so lack the community support of other fields. Panelists on this roundtable will examine the complications medievalist women have experienced in the academic workplace as well as feminist methods for addressing issues and creating a safe, healthy, and functioning workspace.
Dorothy Kim