PhDivas

2021 has been a rough start for the PhDivas. Liz and Xine recorded this in the week after the white supremacist insurrection at the US Capitol -- and then somehow we had to go about academic 'business as usual.' So here the PhDivas discuss the conflicts between our exhaustion, our new curious status as inspirations, the start of term, the resumption of our research, the continued cruelties of academia as institution. All contributing to this delayed launch!

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PhDivas Dr. Xine Yao and Dr. Liz Wayne get together over American Thanksgiving to talk about the challenges of working during COVID19. Supporting our own self care as we support our students, or research efforts is no trivial feat. All the best as the term and the year are winding down!

Learn about the Indigenous peoples and their treaties of the land you're on if you are in a settler colonial nation: https://native-land.ca

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"This belongs in a museum!" Indiana Jones's catchphrase inspired generations of young archaeologists like Alex Fitzpatrick who are now critical of their discipline's colonial and imperialist pasts and presents. In this second part of their interview, PhDiva Xine chats with Alex about Napoleon's influence and approaching archaeology through animals, rather than humans. Alex works on pre-historic Britain, asking about the difference between wild and domestic animals. They also chat about the videogame Animal Crossing as self-care

Learn more on her podcast Archaeo Animals @ArchaeoAnimals! https://www.archaeologypodcastnetwork.com/animals

@ArchaeologyFitz https://animalarchaeology.com/

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Handing in your PhD dissertation and disrupting the field of archaeology is exhausting enough... but during a global pandemic? Archaeologist Alex Fitzpatrick talks to PhDiva Xine on the cusp of earning her degree about precarity, post-dissertation depression, and the strangeness of a Chinese diasporic migrant in the United Kingdom.

Twitter @ArchaeologyFitz

https://animalarchaeology.com/

Image by Molly Lester https://mollypukes.com

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Imagine an interdisciplinary volume collecting advice and experiences of women of colour in graduate school. PhDiva Xine discusses Degrees of Difference with co-editors Denise Delgado and Kimberly McKee (Grand Valley State University). The project grew out of their friendships during their PhDs at Ohio State: other related collaborations include a conference roundtable and writings on feminist pedagogy. We discuss community-building, microaggressions, and how their collection can help support Black Lives Matter-inspired calls for institutional change in higher education.

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Buy Degrees of Difference: https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/37xtz2qt9780252043185.html

https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2020/05/01/three-ways-help-women-color-and-indigenous-women-graduate-students-thrive-opinion

COVID-19 presents new challenges and possibilities for disabled students. Thousands signed an open letter asking grant agencies to automatically extend student funding and for grants for assistive equipment needed to work remotely. Conversely, many shifts to coronavirus teaching are only too familiar to disabled people who have long been advocating for change. "Access is a relationship," says space scientist Divya Persaud in this continuation of her interview with STS colleague Ellie Armstrong and PhDiva Xine. Learn about disability activism in academia -- we all gain from improvements to access.

On the open letter: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/may/21/were-being-fobbed-off-why-disabled-students-are-losing-out-in-lockdown

Sick Woman Theory: http://www.maskmagazine.com/not-again/struggle/sick-woman-theory

You can still check out their conference Space Science in Context: https://spacescienceincontext.wordpress.com/

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"To boldly go to where no man has gone before" -- the classic Star Trek slogan reflects how colonialism informs space exploration. NASA's technologies are the same used for American imperialist ventures today. Even space rocks in museums are procured because of British colonialism. Planetary scientist Divya Persaud and STS scholar Ellie Armstrong organized Space Science in Context, an online interdisciplinary conference in May 2020. PhDiva Xine discusses with Divya and Ellie the legacies of colonialism in space science and fantasies about space exploration. They highlight exciting scholarship and activism by female and nonbinary BIPOC scholars as well as share strategies for making conferences more accessible.

For more on the conference Space Science in Context: https://spacescienceincontext.wordpress.com/

@ellietheelement // ellietheelement.squarespace.com/

@Divya_M_P // divyampersaud.com

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Some of us have additional care responsibilities at home. Some of us are all alone at home. How do we care for ourselves and each other during lockdown? In this second part of our interview, Professor Charissa Cheah draws upon her expertise in psychology to talk about managing child care and the paradoxes of digitally connected loneliness. The PhDivas also discuss the status of research, lab access -- and timeline and funding extensions for students and faculty.

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Why do we talk about our immune systems using the language of warfare? Let's discuss immunity from two perspectives that may seem very different: biomedical engineering and biopolitics. In this episode PhDivas Liz and Xine educate each other about their disciplinary knowledge of what "immunity" means. Cells at Work! is a recent anime about what goes on in the human body: Liz explains the science behind their portrayal of viruses and immune processes. Xine talks about how political and legal immunity came before our knowledge of the immune system by drawing upon Ed Cohen's A Body Worth Defending.

Bonus: PhDiva Liz's genius comparisons between immune system functions and social media platforms!

Cells at Work is on Netflix. Cohen's book is available from Duke University Press.

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Who is seen as the disease or the diseased? Psychologist Charissa Cheah received RAPID grant funding from the National Science Foundation to study the forms of anti-Chinese racism from COVID-19 and their impact on Chinese-American individuals, families, and communities. PhDivas Liz and Xine discuss with Professor Cheah the politics and histories around racial identification health in research and how people, especially immigrants or international students, understand their own racial positioning. Race conscious research is necessary: the media is finally recognizing the disproportionate mortality rate among African Americans. However, Professor Cheah discusses how such research can be distorted to eugenic ends to blame Black people as a distraction from structural racism.

More on Professor Cheah's NSF grant: https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-03/uomb-rts030520.php

Support PhDivas on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/phdivaspodcast