The Academic Life

By Christina GesslerBusiness Education Arts Books Careers

The Academic Life episodes

September 09, 2021Archival Etiquette: What To Know Before You Go
Welcome to The Academic Life. You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island and neither are we. So we reached across our mentor network to bring you podcasts on everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Wish we’d bring on an expert about something? DM us your suggestion on Twitter: The Academic Life @AcademicLifeNBN.
In this episode you’ll hear about: how Megan became an archivist, the unusual collections she works with, why archives can be intimidating, how historians and archivists work together, and archival etiquette tips for new researchers.
Our guest is: Megan Hahn Fraser, who has worked as the Assistant Curator of Manuscripts at The New-York Historical Society, the Library Director at the Independence Seaport Museum in Philadelphia, Co-Head of Collection Management at UCLA Library Special Collections in Los Angeles, and the Vice President and Marcus A. McCorison Librarian at the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, Mass. Currently, she is working for the Research Institute for Contemporary Outlaws, a private collection of 20th century counter-culture materials based in Los Angeles. She received her Master of Information and Library Science (with a concentration in archives management) degree from Pratt Institute in 2000, and has an undergraduate degree in history from New York University. While at UCLA in 2014, Megan founded the Los Angeles Punk Rock Archive Collective, a group of archivists and others focused on acquiring collections from musicians, artists, and fans of the punk rock scene in Southern California. She has presented at the Society of American Archivists annual conference, the South by Southwest Festival, the L.A. as Subject Archives Bazaar, and the Legion of Steel Metalfest and Conference. She can be found on Twitter @mmhfraser, talking about archives, justice, and The Clash.
Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, the co-producer of the Academic Life podcasts, and a historian of women and gender. She has a small garden.
Listeners to this episode might be interested in:
UCLA Library Special Collections Punk archive
Research Institute for Contemporary Outlaws on Instagram
For more information on how reliance on contingent labor is detrimental to the responsible stewardship of archives
American Historical Association open letter to National Archives and Records Administration and retraction
Society of American Archivists (SAA) Responds to the American Historical Association
Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World's Stolen Treasures by Robert K. Wittman (2010)
Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts: Twelve Journeys into the Medieval World by Christopher de Hamel (2017)
Standing in their own Light: African American Patriots in the American Revolution by Judith L. Van Buskirk (2017)
Indecent Advances: A Hidden History of True Crime and Prejudice Before Stonewall by James Polchin (2019)
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1 hr 9 min
September 02, 2021Karen Cook Bell, "Running from Bondage: Enslaved Women and Their Remarkable Fight for Freedom in Revolutionary America" (Cambridge UP, 2021)
In this episode you’ll hear about: how Black women contributed to America’s first freedom war, reading against the grain, rival geographies, fugitivity as an act of resistance, why we must center Black women’s voices, and a discussion of the book Running from Bondage.
Our guest is: Dr. Karen Cook Bell, who is Associate Professor of History. Her areas of specialization include slavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction, and women’s history. Her scholarship has appeared in the Journal of African American History; Georgia Historical Quarterly; Passport; U.S. West-Africa: Interaction and Relations; Before Obama: A Reappraisal of Black Reconstruction Era Politicians; Converging Identities: Blackness in the Contemporary Diaspora; and Slavery and Freedom in Savannah. She has published Claiming Freedom: Race, Kinship, and Land in Nineteenth Century Georgia, which won the Georgia Board of Regents Excellence in Research Award; and Running from Bondage: Enslaved Women and Their Remarkable Fight for Freedom in Revolutionary America. She is editor of Southern Black Women’s Struggle for Freedom during the Civil War and Reconstruction; and a contributor for Black Perspectives. She is a former AAUW Dissertation Fellow.
Today’s book is: Running from Bondage: Enslaved Women and Their Remarkable Fight for Freedom in Revolutionary America, which tells how enslaved women comprised one-third of all runaways, and the ways in which they fled or attempted to flee bondage during and after the Revolutionary War. Dr. Cook Bell's contribution to the study of slave resistance explores the individual and collective lives of these women and girls, and details about what led them to escape. She demonstrates that there two wars waged during the Revolutionary Era: a political revolution for independence from Great Britain and a social revolution for emancipation and equality in which Black women played an active role. Running from Bondage emphasizes the chances taken by these Black founding mothers and the important contributions they made to the cause of liberty.
Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, the producer of the Academic Life podcasts, and a historian of women and gender.
Listeners to this episode might be interested in:
Claiming Freedom: Race, Kinship, and Land in Nineteenth Century Georgia, by Karen Cook Bell

Closer to Freedom: Enslaved Women and Everyday Resistance in the Plantation South, by Stephanie Camp

“What Can We Learn from a Digital Database of Runaway Slave Advertisements,” International Social Science Review vol 76 no. (2001), by Tom Costa

Never Caught, by Erica Armstrong Dunbar

This interview on reclaiming lost voices with Dr. Erica Armstrong Dunbar

This interview about the social constructions of race with Dr. Brigette Fielder
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39 min
August 26, 2021Mentoring in the Academy: A Conversation with Dr. Claire Renzetti
Welcome to The Academic Life. You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island and neither are we. So, we reached across our mentor network to bring you podcasts on everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Wish we’d bring on an expert about something? DM us your suggestion on Twitter: The Academic Life @AcademicLifeNBN.
In this episode you’ll hear: mentoring across academic careers from graduate students to seasoned faculty, optimal conditions for mentor-mentee relationships, mentoring scholars through the publishing process, and gender and power dynamics within academic mentoring.
Our guest is: Dr. Claire M. Renzetti, Professor and Chair of Sociology and the Judi Conway Patton Endowed Chair for Studies of Violence Against Women at the University of Kentucky. She received a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Delaware, with specialties in criminology and the sociology of gender.
For more than 40 years, Dr. Renzetti’s research has focused on the violent victimization experiences of socially and economically marginalized women and girls. She founded in 1995, and continues to edit, the peer-reviewed, international and interdisciplinary journal Violence Against Women, through Sage Publications. Dr. Renzetti is also the editor of the Gender and Justice book series for University of California Press; co-editor of the Interpersonal Violence book series for Oxford University Press, and editor of the Family and Gender-based Violence book series for Cognella. She has written or edited 26 books as well as numerous book chapters and journal articles based on her own research. She also studies the problem of domestic sex trafficking. Additionally, she conducts research on the effects of religiosity and religious self-regulation on intimate partner violence perpetration and victimization. She has held elected offices in several national and regional professional associations, including the American Sociological Association, the American Society of Criminology, the Society for the Study of Social Problems, and the Eastern Sociological Society. Her research and community service has been recognized with awards from the American Sociological Association, the American Society of Criminology, the Society for the Study of Social Problems, the University of Delaware, Artemis Center (Dayton, OH), and the YWCA of Dayton (OH).
Your host is: Dr. Dana Malone, a higher education scholar and practitioner. Dana met Claire as a PhD student at the University of Kentucky, when one of Dana’s academic mentors introduced them.
Listeners to this episode might be interested in:
Positive Academic Leadership: How to Stop Putting Out Fires and Start Making a Difference by Jeffrey L. Buller
Presumed Incompetent II: Race, Class, Power, and Resistance of Women in Academia edited by: Yolanda Flores Niemann, Gabriella Gutiérrez y Muhs, and Carmen G. González
NBN Podcast on Presumed Incompetent II
NBN Podcast on How to Create a Mentor Network
Claire Renzetti’s video series on academic publishing for the American Sociological Association (ASA).*Please note access requires an ASA membership
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/academic-life

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57 min
August 19, 2021Exploring New Paths to Mental Health: A Discussion with Sue Stuart-Smith
Welcome to The Academic Life. You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island and neither are we. So we reached across our mentor network to bring you podcasts on everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Wish we’d bring on an expert about something? DM us your suggestion on Twitter: The Academic Life @AcademicLifeNBN.
In this episode you’ll hear about: Sue Stuart-Smith’s path from English major to psychiatrist, how she went from avoiding gardening to becoming an avid gardener, and a discussion of The Well-Gardened Mind: The Restorative Power of Nature.
Our guest is: Sue Stuart-Smith, a prominent psychiatrist and psychotherapist. She is also an avid gardener. She took her degree in English literature at Cambridge before qualifying as a doctor. She worked in the National Health Service for many years, becoming the lead clinician for psychotherapy in Hertfordshire. She teaches at The Tavistock Clinic in London and is consultant to the DocHealth service. She is married to Tom Stuart-Smith, the celebrated garden designer. She is the author of The Well-Gardened Mind.
Today’s book is: The Well-Gardened Mind: The Restorative Power of Nature, about the healing effects of gardening and its ability to decrease stress and foster mental well-being in our everyday lives. The garden is often seen as a refuge, a place to forget worldly cares, removed from the “real” life that lies outside. But when we get our hands in the earth we connect with the cycle of life in nature through which destruction and decay are followed by regrowth and renewal. Sue Stuart-Smith provides a new perspective on the power of gardening to change people’s lives.
Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, the co-producer of the Academic Life podcasts, and a historian of women and gender. She has a small garden.
Listeners to this episode might be interested in:
The Well-Gardened Mind: The Restorative Power of Nature, by Sue Stuart Smith
Therapeutic Landscapes: An Evidence-Based Approach to Designing Healing Gardens and Restorative Outdoor Spaces, by Clare Marcus and Naomi Sachs
The Profession and Practice of Horticultural Therapy, edited by Rebecca Haller and Karen Kennedy and Christine Capra
Ecotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice, edited by Martin Jordan and Joe Hinds
The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative, by Florence Williams
Radical Compassion, by Tara Brach
The psychology podcast channel on NBN
The mindfulness podcast channel on NBN
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1 hr 6 min
August 12, 2021Laura Portwood-Stacer, "The Book Proposal Book: A Guide for Scholarly Authors" (Princeton UP, 2021)
Welcome to The Academic Life. You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island and neither are we. So we reached across our mentor network to bring you podcasts on everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Wish we’d bring on an expert about something? DM us your suggestion on Twitter: The Academic Life @AcademicLifeNBN.
In this episode you’ll hear about: what a book proposal is and isn’t, why you have to write one, the importance of seeking the right “fit” for your manuscript, how to pitch a quirky book, the difference between a book’s topic and its argument, how to summarize your project in just one sentence, and a discussion of The Book Proposal Book: A Guide for Scholarly Authors (Princeton UP, 2021)
Our guest is: Dr. Laura Portwood-Stacer, an experienced developmental editor and publishing consultant for academic authors. She is the author of The Book Proposal Book: A Guide for Scholarly Authors.
You have to write a book proposal to get published, but most scholars receive no training on how to do so, and you may have never even seen a proposal before you’re expected to produce your own. The Book Proposal Book cuts through the mystery and guides you step by step through the process of crafting a compelling proposal and pitching it to university presses and other academic publishers. Whether you’re hoping to publish your first book or you’re a seasoned author with an unfinished proposal languishing on your hard drive, The Book Proposal Book provides honest, empathetic, and invaluable advice on how to overcome common sticking points and get your book published. It also shows why a well-conceived proposal can help lead to an outstanding book.
Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, the co-producer of the Academic Life podcasts, and a historian of women and gender.
Listeners to this episode might be interested in:
The Book Proposal Book: A Guide for Scholarly Authors, by Laura Portwood-Stacer
Dr. Portwood-Stacer’s Manuscript and Editing Workshops
Dr. Portwood-Stacer’s website
Handbook for Academic Authors, by Beth Luey
Writing and Publishing Your Book: A Guide for Experts in Every Field, by Melody Herr
From Dissertation to Book, by William Germano
The Chicago Manual of Style: The Essential Guide for Writers, Editors, and Publishers
Story Craft: The Complete Guide to Writing Narrative Nonfiction, by Jack Hart
The Business of Being a Writer, by Jane Friedman

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58 min
August 05, 2021Pandemic Perspectives from an Assistant Professor: A Discussion with Ulices Piña
Welcome to The Academic Life. You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island, and neither are we. So we reached across our mentor network to bring you podcasts on everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Wish we’d bring in an expert about something? DM us your suggestion on Twitter: The Academic Life @AcademicLifeNBN.
In this episode you’ll hear about: Dr. Piña’s path through higher education, the importance of mentors and coaches in achieving personal and professional success, how he found his current job, some of the concerns of first gen and of working class students, student grief, the complexity of using campus resources in a pandemic, and what he’s hopeful about.
Our guest is: Dr. Ulices Piña, an Assistant Professor of History at California State University, Long Beach. A native of Long Beach and a product of the California public school system, his teaching and research interests include Mexico, Modern Latin America, revolutions and social movements, and social activism. He is currently writing a book tentatively titled Rebellious Citizens: Democracy and the Search for Dignity in Revolutionary Mexico. The book places the roles of ordinary people in the country’s long fight for democracy, front and center, to tell the story of how they actively shaped the political process and struggled for equality and dignity in the decades following the Mexican Revolution of 1910. He also has a forthcoming article in the Journal of Social History titled “Rebellion at the Fringe: Conspiracy, Surveillance, and State-Making in 1920s Mexico.
Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women and gender. She heard Dr. Piña’s presentation about pandemic pedagogy lessons at the recent WAWH conference, and invited him to share this on the Academic Life.
Listeners to this episode might be interested in:
H-LatAm
The History Teacher
Zapata and the Mexican Revolution by John Womack
Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo
The TV Series: Ted Lasso
The History Department at California State University Long Beach
The Latino Studies Channel on NBN
There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love: Letters from a Crisis edited by Tracy K. Smith and John Freeman
Resources for College Students Dealing With Grief
Resource List for First Gen Students
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/academic-life

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49 min
July 29, 2021Pandemic Perspectives from a Student Studying Abroad
Welcome to The Academic Life. You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island, and neither are we. So we reached across our mentor network to bring you podcasts on everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Wish we’d bring in an expert about something? Email us at cgessler05[at]gmail.com or dr.danamalone[at]gmail.com Find us on Twitter: The Academic Life @AcademicLifeNBN.
In this episode you’ll hear about: a student’s goal to study abroad during college, how she dealt with unexpected restrictions on becoming an international student during a pandemic, her transatlantic travels, living in a “bubble” in her new dorm, and what she’s hopeful about for her return to her American campus for her senior year.
Our guest is: Emma Halfin, who is a junior at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) majoring in Political Science and History and minoring in French. She is currently a visiting student at the University of Oxford in the UK studying history and politics and is looking forward to returning to CWRU in the fall for her senior year.
Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women, gender, and sexuality.
Listeners to this episode might be interested in:
Woollacott, Angela, ‘“Khaki Fever” and its Control: Gender, Class, Age and Sexual Morality on the British Home Front in the First World War’, Journal of Contemporary History, 29/2 (1994), pp. 325-347
Giorgio Agamben, State of Exception (2003)
Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951)
Jeanne Boydston, “Gender as a Question of Historical Analysis”, Gender and History 20/3 (2008)
The Visiting Student Program at the University of Oxford
American students studying abroad during the pandemic
International Students studying in America during the pandemic
The College of Arts and Sciences at Case Western Reserve University
Visa concerns for students studying abroad during the pandemic
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/academic-life

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48 min
July 22, 2021Reclaiming Lost Voices and Recovering History: A Discussion with Erica Armstrong Dunbar
Welcome to The Academic Life. You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island, and neither are we. So we reached across our mentor network to bring you podcasts on everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Wish we’d bring in an expert about something? Email us at cgessler05(at)gmail.com or dr.danamalone(at)gmail.com or find us on Twitter: The Academic Life @AcademicLifeNBN.
In this episode you’ll hear about: reclaiming lost voices, recovering history, and a discussion of the book Never Caught: The Washington’s Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge.
Our guest is: Dr. Erica Armstrong Dunbar, a late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century scholar with a specialization in African American women’s history. From 2011 to 2018 she was the Inaugural Director of the Program in African American history at the Library Company of Philadelphia. She has written numerous articles, reviews, essays, and books including Never Caught, and has given scholarly talks across the country. She is the National Director of the Association of Black Women Historians (ABWH), and is the Charles and Mary Beard Distinguished Professor of History at Rutgers University.
Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women and gender.
Listeners to this episode might be interested in:
Never Caught: The Washington’s Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge by Erica Armstrong Dunbar
She Came to Slay: The Life and Times of Harriet Tubman by Erica Armstrong Dunbar
A Fragile Freedom: African American Women and Emancipation in the Antebellum City by Erica Armstrong Dunbar
Daina Ramey Berry and Erica Armstrong Dunbar, “The Unbroken Chain of Enslaved African Resistance and Rebellion.” In The Birth of a Nation: Nat Turner and the Making of a Movement, edited by N. Parker, 35-61. New York: Atria/Simon and Schuster, September 2016.
The Association of Black Women Historians http://abwh.org
The Program in African American History at the Library Company of Philadelphia
Dr. Armstrong’s website
The African-American studies channel on NBN
The History Department at the College of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/academic-life

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1 hr
July 15, 2021Teaching First-Year and First-Generation Students: A Conversation with Lisa Nunn
Welcome to The Academic Life. You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island, and neither are we. So we reached across our mentor network to bring you podcasts on everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Wish we’d bring in an expert about something? Email us at [email protected] or [email protected]. Find us on Twitter: The Academic Life @AcademicLifeNBN.
In this episode you’ll hear about: distinguishing between student abilities and academic skill sets, why the goal should not be making first-generation students more like continuing generation students, how to introduce yourself in a way that promotes student success, the mini-midterm, and other strategies to promote student success.
Our guest is: Lisa M. Nunn, Ph.D., author of 33 Simple Strategies for Faculty: A Week-by-Week Resource for Teaching First-Year and First-Generation Students (Rutgers University Press, 2018) and Professor of Sociology at the University of San Diego. She is the Director of her campus' Center for Educational Excellence. She is also the author of College Belonging: How First-Year and First-Generation Students Navigate Campus Life as well as a book on high school students, Defining Student Success: The Role of School and Culture. She didn't grow up knowing that she would become a sociologist and she graduated college as a literature and theater major, still not knowing that she would become a sociologist. It was during her years with the Peace Corps in Limbaži, Latvia in her early twenties when she started to recognize how fascinating cultural ideas and social structures are. How they shape who we are, who we want to become, and how they also constrain the paths available to us to get there. She hasn't stopped thinking about or talking about these dynamics since.
Your host is: Dr. Dana Malone, a higher education scholar and practitioner. She specializes in college student relationships, gender, sexuality, and religious identities as well as assessment planning. Dana enjoys engaging conversations, delicious food, practicing yoga, and wandering the Jersey shore.
Listeners to this episode might be interested in:
College Belonging: How First-Year and First-Generation Students Navigate Campus Life by Lisa M. Nunn
Interview with Lisa Nunn on her book College Belonging.
Defining Student Success: The Role of School and Culture by Lisa Nunn
The Skillful Teacher: On Technique, Trust, and Responsiveness in the Classroom by Stephen Brookfield
Small Teaching Online: Applying Learning Science in Online Classes by Flower Darby and James Lang
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/academic-life

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51 min
July 08, 2021 Another Look at Life as an Alt-Ac: A Discussion with Erica Bauermeister
Welcome to The Academic Life. You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island, and neither are we. So we reached across our mentor network to bring you podcasts on everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Wish we’d bring in an expert about something? Email us at cgessler05(at)gmail.com or dr.danamalone(at)gmail.com or find us on Twitter: The Academic Life @AcademicLifeNBN.
In this episode you’ll hear about: Dr. Erica Bauermeister’s career journey out of academia, her move to Italy and back to the US, how she unexpectedly found herself renovating a house, and a discussion of the book House Lessons.
Our guest is: Erica Bauermeister, who earned her PhD at the University of Washington. She was frustrated by the lack of women authors in the curriculum, and in response co-authored 500 Great Books by Women: A Reader’s Guide, and Let’s Hear it For The Girls. She taught writing and literature, got married and had children and left academia. She became a Realtor, moved to Italy, moved back to the US, continued writing, and then unexpectedly found herself renovating a house. Erica’s first novel was published as she was turning 50. Her books have been translated into more than 50 languages, been selected for Reese Witherspoon’s book club, and made the USA Today and NYT bestseller list.
Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women and gender. Christina once helped renovate a cottage on a small island off the coast of Massachusetts.
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/academic-life

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59 min

About The Academic Life

From the publisher's feed

A podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! Created and produced by Dr. Christina Gessler, the Academic Life podcast is inspired by today’s knowledge-producers around the world, working inside and outside the academy.