Good luck with the start of another academic year: you are not alone. Mental health is often falsely presented as irrelevant to people of colour. Dr. Samara Linton and Dr. Rianna Walcott's brilliant The Colour of Madness explores mental health for and by people of colour across art, essays, poetry, and stories. Together with PhDiva Xine they discuss bridging the STEM/humanities divide through their collaboration and the uses of the book to communities, teaching, and health care professionals. Th...
Sep 26, 2022•1 hr 3 min
Adversity and the power of friendship! In the second half of the interview, PhDiva Xine talks with historian Cassie Osei about pedagogy during the pandemic and life lessons from Sailor Moon. Do you watch anime? How does it affect how you engage in the world? For show notes see our blogpost: https://phdivaspodcast.wordpress.com/2022/07/11/s6e9-pandemic-pedagogy-sailor-moon-solidarity-w-dr-cassie-osei/ Support PhDivas on Patreon: www.patreon.com/phdivaspodcast Dr. Cassie Osei (she/hers) is a histo...
Jul 11, 2022•32 min
Wherever they are, Black women have always theorized about race and gender, says Dr. Cassie Osei. In the first of two eps, PhDiva Xine interviews Cassie Osei, historian of Afro-Brazilian women's history, longtime PhDivas Podcast listener, and newly minted PhDiva (!). Cassie talks about archival methodologies, Black feminist theorizing beyond the US, and about the personal importance of what she playfully refers to as 'low femme theory.' For show notes see our blog post: https://phdivaspodcast.wo...
May 27, 2022•1 hr
Let's talk about feelings, unfeelings, boundaries, and emotional labour! How do we build solidarities beyond what Black feminist Audre Lorde calls 'the master's house'? In part 2, PhDiva Liz chats to Xine about her book Disaffected and how her own positionality as a Chinese diasporic queer person led to how she navigates a feminist approach to feeling and unfeeling that is mindful of comparative racialization. They talk about 19th-century anti-Asian and anti-Black racisms alongside their own exp...
Mar 22, 2022•54 min
So much and yet so little has changed for women of colour since the 19th century... PhDivas Liz and Xine discuss Xine's first book DISAFFECTED. Xine shares the challenges of writing a monograph (a fancy academic term for research book). Chapter 4 is kind of an homage to Liz: it discusses Black feminist approaches to STEM in the nineteenth century by analyzing a novel by a major Black woman writer alongside the writings of the first two Black American women to receive medical degrees. Liz and Xin...
Feb 21, 2022•1 hr 1 min
If the master's tools can never dismantle the master's house, what can we build instead? Since emotional labour is racialized and gendered, what if minoritized people say 'no'? Listen to several brilliant WOC scholars discuss PhDiva Xine's new book DISAFFECTED: each of them was given a chapter of the book to respond to in order to give the audience a sense of the overall argument as well as a chance for each scholar to discuss their own research. 170+ people attended from around the world! 0:00 ...
Dec 30, 2021•1 hr 30 min
Have you watched Netflix's The Chair? Join PhDivas Liz and Xine as they talk about all the uncomfortable resonances between their experiences as women of colour in academia and the short 'comedy' series starring Sandra Oh. (Yes, Xine even had a student describe her as 'if Sandra Oh were an academic.') They discuss antiblackness, model minority failings, sabotage, emotional labour, and sympathies with student activists and beleagured staff. Support us on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/phdivaspo...
Sep 30, 2021•1 hr 12 min
Just because they are both systems of oppression does not mean that casteism ≠ racism! Postcolonialism developed as a field of study established by predominantly Indian intellectuals -- but only understanding them as non-Black people of colour erases their caste privilege. Shaista Patel, a professor in Critical Muslim studies at UC San Diego, chats with PhDiva Xine about the nuances of Islamophobia, Hindu nationalism, and casteism that are often misread or overlooked by outsiders. Image used wit...
Aug 24, 2021•37 min
Mother's Day Special! Liz interviews her mom about what it's like to raise a PhDiva. Learn about Liz's childhood career aspirations and their intergenerational experience of education in Mississippi. Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/phdivaspodcast
May 10, 2021•17 min
Springtime is the season of success for a few... and rejection for the majority. PhDivas Liz and Xine revisit the perennial topic of the many, many forms of rejection in academia -- from grants, students, programmes -- as early career scholars and attentive to disparities of power. Failure isn't only personal, but can be structural especially for BIPOC academics: is the problem with your individual proposal or is it a broader institutional issue? What is at stake? 'Branding' and the academic equ...
Apr 29, 2021•51 min
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! You can support us on Patreon: https:/...
Mar 11, 2021•54 min
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 Support PhDivas on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/phdivaspodcast
Dec 18, 2020•46 min
"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 video...
Nov 30, 2020•36 min
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 PhDivas Podcast Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/phdivaspodcast...
Oct 30, 2020•47 min
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 Bl...
Sep 30, 2020•52 min
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 a...
Aug 13, 2020•30 min
"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 colo...
Jul 16, 2020•45 min
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. Support PhDivas on Patreon! https...
Jun 11, 2020•34 min
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 immu...
May 14, 2020•50 min
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...
Apr 24, 2020•41 min
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 cl...
Apr 02, 2020•33 min
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
Mar 15, 2020•51 min
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 Patr...
Mar 05, 2020•44 min
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...
Feb 20, 2020•1 hr 8 min
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 beca...
Jan 24, 2020•23 min
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 th...
Dec 02, 2019•48 min
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 hav...
Nov 28, 2019•50 min
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...
Oct 24, 2019•58 min
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 lev...
Oct 03, 2019•59 min
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?
Aug 16, 2019•22 min
