Jekyll2023-10-13T16:07:53+00:00http://halperta.github.io/atom.xmlHannah Alpert-AbramsTowards a better future for higher education.{"name"=>nil, "picture"=>nil, "email"=>nil, "twitter"=>nil, "links"=>[{"title"=>nil, "url"=>nil, "icon"=>nil}]}2022 Contingent Journal Article List2022-12-09T00:00:00+00:002022-12-09T00:00:00+00:00http://halperta.github.io/media/contin<p>“Finding Your Purpose” was featured in Contingent Magazine’s list of articles published by scholars working off the tenure track.</p>
<p><a href="https://contingentmagazine.org/2022/12/06/2022-contingent-journal-article-list/">Read more</a></p>{"name"=>nil, "picture"=>nil, "email"=>nil, "twitter"=>nil, "links"=>[{"title"=>nil, "url"=>nil, "icon"=>nil}]}“Finding Your Purpose” was featured in Contingent Magazine’s list of articles published by scholars working off the tenure track.(Interview) Finding Your Purpose in HE2022-11-23T00:00:00+00:002022-11-23T00:00:00+00:00http://halperta.github.io/media/SEDA<p>Finding Your Purpose in HE: an interview on the SEDA blog. November 23, 2022.</p>
<p>Like many of us, I came to higher education because I believed that it was a profession that could allow me to foster community and be part of social change. But I have often struggled with the feeling that both my work and institutions fell short of the goal of making the world a better place through research and teaching.</p>
<p><a href="https://thesedablog.wordpress.com/2022/11/23/finding-your-purpose-in-he/">Read more</a></p>{"name"=>nil, "picture"=>nil, "email"=>nil, "twitter"=>nil, "links"=>[{"title"=>nil, "url"=>nil, "icon"=>nil}]}Finding Your Purpose in HE: an interview on the SEDA blog. November 23, 2022.Where the Money Resides2022-11-05T00:00:00+00:002022-11-05T00:00:00+00:00http://halperta.github.io/white%20papers/Negotiations<p>“Where the Money Resides: Demystifying Academic Job Negotiations.” Hannah Alpert-Abrams, Ashley Farmer, and Ashanté Reese. November 5, 2022.</p>
<p>This project started with a conversation between Ashanté and Ashley: what things do people ask for when they are negotiating jobs? Though the two of us had negotiated job offers in the past, we realized that aside from asking for more of what was offered to us, no one had really taught us how to negotiate or what the landscape of possibilities looked like.</p>
<p><a href="https://hcommons.org/deposits/item/hc:49291/">Read more</a></p>{"name"=>nil, "picture"=>nil, "email"=>nil, "twitter"=>nil, "links"=>[{"title"=>nil, "url"=>nil, "icon"=>nil}]}“Where the Money Resides: Demystifying Academic Job Negotiations.” Hannah Alpert-Abrams, Ashley Farmer, and Ashanté Reese. November 5, 2022.Finding Your Purpose2022-06-17T00:00:00+00:002022-06-17T00:00:00+00:00http://halperta.github.io/shalperta%20press/purpose<p><em>Higher Calling</em> is a project for everyone who decided to become a scholar because they believed in the mission of higher education. “Finding Your Purpose” is a workbook to help all of us navigate the contradictions between the work we are driven to do and the conditions we face in our working lives.</p>
<p>“Finding Your Purpose” offers guided questions, exercises, and rituals to help you orient yourself in relation to your work; trace your lineage; identify your community; embrace sources of pleasure; articulate your values; and find your purpose.</p>
<p>The Finding Your Purpose workbook is freely available as an eBook and downloadable pdf. A small number of copies were printed on a risograph gr3770 by Shalperta Press in July 2022.</p>
<p>Download the PDF:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="/pdf/HCP-spread.pdf">Two-page spread</a></li>
<li><a href="/pdf/HCP-pages.pdf">Single-page book</a></li>
<li><a href="/pdf/HCP-booklet.pdf">Foldable booklet</a></li>
</ul>
<p><a href="/pdf/highercalling-purpose.epub">Download as an ePub</a></p>
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</div>{"name"=>nil, "picture"=>nil, "email"=>nil, "twitter"=>nil, "links"=>[{"title"=>nil, "url"=>nil, "icon"=>nil}]}Higher Calling is a project for everyone who decided to become a scholar because they believed in the mission of higher education. “Finding Your Purpose” is a workbook to help all of us navigate the contradictions between the work we are driven to do and the conditions we face in our working lives.Finding Your Purpose with the High Theory Podcast2022-06-01T00:00:00+00:002022-06-01T00:00:00+00:00http://halperta.github.io/shalperta%20press/purposelaunch<p>Listen to a recording of the “Finding Your Purpose” book launch, hosted by the High Theory podcast: <a href="http://hightheory.net/2022/09/13/finding-your-purpose-2/">http://hightheory.net/2022/09/13/finding-your-purpose-2/</a></p>
<p>High Theory Podcast presents the launch of Finding Your Purpose: a Higher Calling Workbook for Justice-Oriented Scholars in an Unjust World.</p>
<p>Higher Calling is a project for everyone who decided to become a scholar because they believed in the mission of higher education, and specifically, for everyone who saw participating in and working for higher education as a way to turn the pursuit of justice into a career. It aims to help you understand how to better align a career in academia with your sense of purpose; how to recognize when your purposes are no longer served by academia; how to pursue scholarly purpose outside of an academic career; and when and how to fight back against the broken system which is higher education in the United States.</p>
<p>At times, one may wonder if the compromises are too great, the labor conditions untenable, or the barriers to doing meaningful work too high. This project aims to help you navigate these moments alone and in community through essays, exercises, and rituals.</p>
<h2 id="speakers">Speakers:</h2>
<p>Hannah Alpert-Abrams organizes the Visionary Futures Collective, and writes about labor, technology, and higher education.</p>
<p>Matt Cohen is a professor of English and scholar of Early American literature at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.</p>
<p>Sonya Donaldson is a professor of English and scholar of Africana studies at New Jersey City University.</p>
<p>Quinn Dombrowski is an academic technology specialist and digital humanist at Stanford University.</p>
<p>Carter Hogan is a writer and new trans folk musician based in Austin, Texas.</p>
<p>High Theory Podcast asks simple questions about difficult ideas from the academy.</p>
<!--
[Register for the project launch: June 17, 2022 at 4pm est](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/book-launch-finding-your-purpose-a-higher-calling-workbook-tickets-346145318967)
[Pre-Order a printed copy now.](https://square.link/u/LJQuKeHX) -->{"name"=>nil, "picture"=>nil, "email"=>nil, "twitter"=>nil, "links"=>[{"title"=>nil, "url"=>nil, "icon"=>nil}]}Listen to a recording of the “Finding Your Purpose” book launch, hosted by the High Theory podcast: http://hightheory.net/2022/09/13/finding-your-purpose-2/What’s Hope Got to Do With It?2022-03-15T00:00:00+00:002022-03-15T00:00:00+00:00http://halperta.github.io/scholarship/hope<p>Hannah Alpert-Abrams and Saronik Bosu. “What’s Hope Got to Do With It?” Post45 Contemporaries: Dark Academia. March 15, 2022.</p>
<p>Ask us a question and we’ll draw a card for you.</p>
<p>Let’s say: How can studying dark academia give us hope for higher education?</p>
<p><a href="https://post45.org/2022/03/whats-hope-got-to-do-with-it/">Read more</a></p>{"name"=>nil, "picture"=>nil, "email"=>nil, "twitter"=>nil, "links"=>[{"title"=>nil, "url"=>nil, "icon"=>nil}]}Hannah Alpert-Abrams and Saronik Bosu. “What’s Hope Got to Do With It?” Post45 Contemporaries: Dark Academia. March 15, 2022.Postcards of Rage and Renewal2022-03-01T00:00:00+00:002022-03-01T00:00:00+00:00http://halperta.github.io/visionary%20futures%20collective/rage<p>As we surpass one million lives lost to COVID in the US alone, we find ourselves grasping for ways to find meaning and grieve while continuing to live and work and care.</p>
<p>This project, a collaboration between the Visionary Futures Collective and the Inkcap Collective, emerged as a way to collectively channel and process our outrage towards the inadequacy of the pandemic response and to build our hope for the future.</p>
<p>Instructions</p>
<ul>
<li>Write on or decorate the postcards however you want.</li>
<li>Stamp one card and put it in the mail by August 1. (Stamp included)</li>
<li>Keep the other card, but share a photo:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/CoyoteAndBones">@coyoteandbones</a></li>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23RageAndRenewal&src=typed_query">#RageAndRenewal</a></li>
<li>visionaryfuturescollective@gmail.com</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>If you wish, send us a $5 donation to help cover costs (venmo redacted)</li>
<li>Stay tuned for next steps. Based on what you share, we’ll be designing rituals and exhibitions of celebration, mourning, fury, and hope.</li>
</ul>
<p><img src="/images/other/postcards.jpg" alt="Two postcards in the grass. One says "rage" and has a floral background and a valve that says "climax relief valve." The other says "renewal" and shows flowers growing out of a toilet. Images are in black, neon pink, and neon green." /></p>{"name"=>nil, "picture"=>nil, "email"=>nil, "twitter"=>nil, "links"=>[{"title"=>nil, "url"=>nil, "icon"=>nil}]}As we surpass one million lives lost to COVID in the US alone, we find ourselves grasping for ways to find meaning and grieve while continuing to live and work and care.This Map Tracks Faculty and Staff Experiences With Covid on Campus in Real Time2021-09-01T00:00:00+00:002021-09-01T00:00:00+00:00http://halperta.github.io/media/che<p>A new data-visualization project is collecting information from faculty and staff members about how many of their students have contracted Covid-19 or are quarantining, and about how those workers feel about the state of affairs on their campus.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/live-coronavirus-updates/this-map-tracks-faculty-and-staff-experiences-with-covid-on-campus-in-real-time">Read more</a></p>{"name"=>nil, "picture"=>nil, "email"=>nil, "twitter"=>nil, "links"=>[{"title"=>nil, "url"=>nil, "icon"=>nil}]}A new data-visualization project is collecting information from faculty and staff members about how many of their students have contracted Covid-19 or are quarantining, and about how those workers feel about the state of affairs on their campus.Transparency, Vulnerability, and Collective Action2021-03-01T00:00:00+00:002021-03-01T00:00:00+00:00http://halperta.github.io/public%20speaking/nemla<p>“Transparency, Vulnerability, and Collective Action.” Northeast MLA, March 2021.</p>
<h1 id="transcript">Transcript</h1>
<p>I’m going to be talking about something a little different. I’m going to talk about feelings.</p>
<p>This is a difficult time for workers in and around higher education. Since last summer, I’ve been
asking humanities workers to share their feelings, and while the specifics have changed, the
overwhelming consensus is that working in higher education during a pandemic is exhausting,
scary, outrageous, and sad.</p>
<p>This week, which marks a full year of pandemic response for many of us, has been particularly difficult for me, and maybe for you as well. I am so exhausted.</p>
<p>I’m way too exhausted, to be honest, to write a talk about the future of higher education. So I did the obvious thing, and asked my tarot deck for guidance.</p>
<p>For those who might not know, tarot is a tool for asking questions about the world and seeking answers within yourself. You draw a card from a deck and use that card as a guide to answer your question.</p>
<p>The question I asked was: what should I focus on during today’s talk?</p>
<p>The card I pulled was the Assistant Professor. In traditional tarot, this card represents temperance, alchemy, and the balance of things. Because I drew the card reversed, it can be understood as a warning that the way we are feeling and the way we are acting are not in alignment.</p>
<p>So I think what this card was telling me is that in speaking with you, I should focus on what it means to align our fears and desires with our professional work. The way I’m going to do that is by talking about, in the words of feminist literary scholar Mimi Winick, strategies and tactics for creating personal and institutional change.</p>
<p>When I say change, I’m thinking of revolutions. I am inspired by Julian Chambliss’s work on Black science fiction, where he argues that in a context where the future feels bleak and violent, alternative visions of the future are crucial to survival. I am also inspired by the work of the Emergent Strategy Ideation Institute, which offers guidance for implementing change when the need is so great that change feels both overwhelming and impossible. They’re talking about things like prison abolition and climate change and racial justice, but their work applies to higher education too. As founder Adrienne Maree Brown says, one of the most important things activists can do is envision the future we want to create.</p>
<p>So when I say I want to talk about change, I’m speaking about the transformation of all of higher education from a space of exploitation to an institution that serves our collective good by educating for justice, equity, and healing.</p>
<p>And when I say strategies and tactics, I mean that none of us can afford to wait for higher education to remake itself. If you are on the job market now, you don’t have time to wait until higher education becomes a system that will give you what you need.</p>
<p>It may be tempting, in this context, to turn inward and to try to save ourselves. But I hope you will consider turning that grief and anger and disappointment outwards instead.
If we do that, I believe we can create spaces where individuals experience less suffering in isolation, and more collective transformation.</p>
<p>I want to give you two examples of what this can look like.</p>
<p>The first example is what I’ve been calling shared vulnerability. Shared vulnerability has to do with creating spaces where it is safe for us to be outraged and overwhelmed and angry and hopeful together.</p>
<p>An example of how I’ve implemented shared vulnerability in my academic community is the tarot deck I showed you earlier, which is a project developed by the Visionary Futures Collective and painted by the artist Claire Chenette.</p>
<p>We designed the deck at a time when we were all feeling scared about the future, about the job market and the collapse of tenure protections and the role of universities in spreading disease. I now use it in many of my professional interactions, and it’s created something extraordinary: a safe way to be vulnerable with colleagues as we talk about things that are often scary and sad. The second example is what I’ve been calling radical transparency. Radical transparency has to do with using information that has been kept secret to empower community members to take action for their own futures.</p>
<p>If you’re an assistant instructor, an example of radical transparency might be sharing your salary with the undergraduate students in your classroom. If you’re a student, it might be writing a job
description for faculty advisors. If you’re faculty, it might mean sharing a more honest story of your own professional journey so your students can understand that they are not alone. One way that we’ve used radical transparency with the Visionary Futures Collective is through the job market support network, which is an online repository of job materials. I started the job market support network after a faculty member, tasked with advising me on the job market, instead offered a litany of racist and classist feedback about my appearance. I realized that we could not trust individual faculty to use their platforms to support equity in the profession. So I built a repository where anyone in the world could access information about how to seek a job in and beyond the tenure track.</p>
<p>This isn’t particularly innovative or experimental, and it’s not a ton of work. But I think it’s helped a lot of people feel more confident and capable as they navigate their careers.</p>
<p>So, to conclude.</p>
<p>I wrote this talk primarily for anyone in the audience who is trying to imagine yourself into a new professional future under very difficult conditions.</p>
<p>Lately I’ve been thinking about something Kathleen Fitzpatrick wrote early in the pandemic: that our universities have to earn the right to survive. I honestly don’t think they have. I think the choices of university administrators during this pandemic have made clear to me that they are not prioritizing our collective good, or their own educational mandate. I don’t think it’s our job to help them survive.</p>
<p>But I do think that we deserve to survive, and even thrive.</p>
<p>Wherever you are now in your professional life, I hope your own future is one that allows you to build community and foster relationships built on transparency, vulnerability, and a shared sense of justice. And I hope you are able to participate in the work of envisioning a better future for higher education, so that we can build a future worth fighting for.</p>
<p>And I hope you’ll join us tomorrow for academic tarot happy hour, so we can talk about some of these futures together.</p>{"name"=>nil, "picture"=>nil, "email"=>nil, "twitter"=>nil, "links"=>[{"title"=>nil, "url"=>nil, "icon"=>nil}]}“Transparency, Vulnerability, and Collective Action.” Northeast MLA, March 2021.Digital Humanities & Colonial Latin American Studies2021-01-01T00:00:00+00:002021-01-01T00:00:00+00:00http://halperta.github.io/scholarship/dhqclas<p>Hannah Alpert-Abrams and Clayton McCarl. “Digital Humanities & Colonial Latin American Studies.” Digital Humanities Quarterly 14.4. 2020.</p>
<h1 id="abstract">Abstract</h1>
<p>This special issue of Digital Humanities Quarterly examines intersections between colonial Latin American studies (CLAS) and digital humanities (DH) theory and practice. The essays collected here touch on matters that pertain to numerous fields, including anthropology, archaeology, art history, history, linguistics, and literature. By doing so in a digital context, they blur the lines between many of these fields, and point to several major themes that predominate across digital humanities scholarship today.</p>
<p><a href="http://digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/14/4/index.html">Read more</a></p>{"name"=>nil, "picture"=>nil, "email"=>nil, "twitter"=>nil, "links"=>[{"title"=>nil, "url"=>nil, "icon"=>nil}]}Hannah Alpert-Abrams and Clayton McCarl. “Digital Humanities & Colonial Latin American Studies.” Digital Humanities Quarterly 14.4. 2020.