PhDivas

Even scientists face deportation in an anti-immigration environment. But Dr. Furaha Asani cautions that academics shouldn't think of themselves as "one of the good ones." Biochemist Dr. Asani is now one of the migrant precariat because her visa was denied for questionable reasons. PhDiva Xine Yao interviews Dr. Asani about reimagining STEM PhD training and the scientific method. It's okay to be a "very average scientist" -- Dr. Asani questions putting scientists on pedestals in terms of their claims to objectivity and upholding colonial standards of meritocracy.

Dr. Furaha Asani on migrant solidarity: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/25/phd-migrants-good-immigrant-deportation

Dr. Furaha Asani on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrFuraha_Asani

Support the Work of PhDivas Podcast: https://www.patreon.com/phdivaspodcast

Do you have questions about #COVID19? Or even basic questions about viruses in general? Dr. Kishana Taylor is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of California, Davis. She studies the rate of reassortment between influenza viruses during co-infection.

Listen as Dr. Taylor breaks down how viruses are named, with #COVID19 is so bad and what songs we sing when we wash our hands.

You can follow her on twitter: @KYT_ThatsME

Our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/phdivaspodcast

PhDivas Podcast interviews Computational Biologist Dr. Laura Boykin. We talk about Tree Lab, the project bringing sequencing capabilities to farmers in Uganda. Also mentioned, being nervous before a TED Talk, doing science on her own terms, and dancing.

You can follow Dr. Boykin on twitter @Laura_boykin and learn about Tree Lab at cassavavirusactionproject.com

Here is her recent TED Talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/laura_boykin_how_we_re_using_dna_tech_to_help_farmers_fight_crop_diseases

Our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/phdivaspodcast

There are currently fewer than 30 Black women full professors in the UK... in any discipline. If you know Angela Davis and Kimberle Crenshaw, do you also know about Gail Lewis and Olive Morris? PhDiva Xine interviews Jade Bentil, a historian of Black British women's activism, and Paulette Williams, who heads initiatives to support current and aspiring Black academics. Jade and Paulette discuss staying critical of the "British" in Black British feminism, family oral histories, and the co-optation of Black studies by white saviours and colonial institutions.

Jade Bentil: https://twitter.com/divanificent

Paulette Williams: https://twitter.com/pwi11iams

Leading Routes: www.leadingroutes.org

www.twitter.com/leadingroutes

How do we evaluate the value of our work? PhDivas is finally launching a Patreon in order to sustain this project. Liz and Xine decided to sit down and record why it has taken them so long to put this together. (Awkwardness!) Sometimes we are so used to giving free labour to our institutions and our field of study that, combined with imposter syndrome, it is hard to ask for the support we need to continue that work. For some of us even the act of asking for any form of support is terrifying because of the fear of rejection -- so it feels safer not to try at all. Stop procrastinating and put the same faith you have in others into yourself!

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/phdivaspodcast

We appreciate your follows, ratings, and reviews!

Job security, unequal pay, excessive workloads, gender and racial inequality: this is the state of academia everywhere. How do we push for change when institutions don't want to? In the UK the University and College Union is on STRIKE to fight for the soul of the university and that means PhDiva Xine is too. Xine interviews Dr. Francesca Brooks about the history and demands behind the strike as well as the tactics and lived experience from the perspective of precarity. If you are elsewhere in the world, may you learn something useful from this struggle!

You can show your solidarity by donating to the union's fighting fund which provides financial support for those going without pay, with emphasis on the most vulnerable: https://www.ucu.org.uk/fightingfund

Or you can join the #digitalstrike by not posting about any work that benefits your institutional employer during this time. Use #UCUStrike #UCUStrikesBack, reshare this information about the strike widely!

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/nov/07/university-staff-dont-want-to-strike-for-fair-pensions-and-pay-but-were-being-forced-to

it's time for a wellness check! PhDivas Liz and Xine talk about getting sick while navigating challenges as new faculty in STEM and the humanities -- and adulting. What are our new privileges and limitations on our research and advocacy? It's also a wellness check for the health of academia. Just because you are well does not mean the system is working! And enjoy the discussion of Avatar: The Last Airbender aka the greatest show of all time. Check in with yourself and those around you. As we have to remind ourselves, just because it is the final push of the semester and year doesn't mean you should push yourself to breaking...

To learn more about the protests on Mauna Kea against the Thirty Meter Telescope, see Keolu Fox and Chanda Hsu Prescod-Weinstein's article: https://www.thenation.com/article/mauna-kea-tmt-colonial-science/

In the eyes of Western art all brown girls are the same. "Annah the Javanese" by the famous artist Paul Gauguin depicts a nude young brown girl with a monkey at her feet. She was his "mistress." In her PhD in Visuals Cultures Indonesian artist Khairani Barokka (Goldsmiths) uses her own art practice to question the inconsistent histories about Annah and to imagine her story in the midst of colonial exploitation. Okka and PhDiva Xine discuss disability studies, performance, poetry, and art history as two postcolonial subjects now living in the former heart of empire.

Pic credit: Christa Holka.

http://khairanibarokka.com

@mailbykite

Debut poetry collection Rope:

http://ninearchespress.com/publications/poetry-collections/rope.html

Poetry-art book Indigenous Species:

http://www.tiltedaxispress.com/indigenous-species/

Annah: Nomenclature at the ICA

https://www.ica.art/on/live/khairani-barokka-annah-nomenclature

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsIoIawX01s

https://www.ica.art/on/live/khairani-barokka-performance-qa

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ejnAxXS_Yo

Selected Annahs at SALTS Basel

http://www.salts.ch/#/en/exhibition/bhanu-kapil-khairani-barokka

None of us in STEM or humanities should ever take libraries for granted! PhDiva Liz Wayne interviews Dr. Elaine Westbrook (Vice Provost of UNC Chapel-Hill Libraries) about the knowledge economy, peer review, and the invisible, exorbitant cost of journals. Scientists pay to have their articles published and then their universities can spend up to $40,000 on a single journal to make that research available to their community. This is an ethical matter of access and inequality on a geopolitical level.

Follow Dr. Elaine L Westbrooks @UNC_Librarian!

More about PhDiva Liz's new job! What happens to your personal life when you get that coveted academic job and have to move away? We advance in our careers but family advance in age. Liz and Xine talk about how the academic job market affects dating and family. How are we treated professionally and socially if we are single versus coupled academics?