Queer Precarities in and out of Higher Education: Challenging Institutional Structures

Description

Queer Precarity in Higher Education looks at queer scholars pushing against institutional structures, and the queer knowledge that gets pushed out by universities. It provides insight into the work of, in and beyond academia as it is un-done in the contemporary (post)Covid moment, not least by queer academic-activists. This radical un-doing represents cycles of queer precarity, pragmatism and participation both situating and questioning the 'queer arrival' of institutionalized programmes and presences (e.g. queer and gender studies degrees, prominent and public feminist academics). In this book, the contributors push back against contemporary educational precarity, mobilizing queer insight and insistence; and push back against confinement of the University, socially and spatially. The collection brings together academic-activist perspectives to extend understandings of experiences of marginalization and inequality in higher education. It also documents the diversity of tactics with which queers negotiate and resist the various, shifting and interconnected forms of precarity and privilege found on the edges of academia. Contributors consider these issues from inside/outside academia and across career course, challenging the 'queer arrival' as emanating outward from the university to the community, from the academic to the activist, or from a state of privilege to a place of precarity.

Yvette Taylor is Professor of Education, University of Strathclyde, UK, and Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. Yvette has published four sole-authored books based on funded research: Working-class Lesbian Life (2007); Lesbian and Gay Parenting (2009); Fitting Into Place? Class and Gender Geographies and Temporalities (2012) and Making Space for Queer Identifying Religious Youth (2015) and co-authored Feminist Repetitions in Higher Education: Interrupting Career Categories. Matt Brim is Professor of Queer Studies at the City University of New York's College of Staten Island and Graduate Cente, USA. His book Poor Queer Studies: Confronting Elitism in the University (2020) reorients the field of queer studies away from exclusionary institutions of higher education and toward working-class colleges, students, theories, and pedagogies. Brim is the author of James Baldwin and the Queer Imagination (2014), as well as an open access online guide for teaching the HIV/AIDS activist documentary film United in Anger: A History of ACT UP (2012). Churnjeet Mahn is Reader in English at the University of Strathclyde, UK, and a fellow of the Young Academy of Scotland (Royal Society of Edinburgh). She recently completed a large Arts and Humanities Research Council project entitled Creative Interruptions and she is currently running a British Academy grant entitled Cross-Border Queers: The Story of South Asian Migrants to the UK.

This exciting collection is an important addition to both the literature on queer cultures/theory and on the precarious systems of higher education. Wide-ranging in focus, and including both evocative reflections and analytical suggestions for change, it will be a valuable addition to many bookshelves. * Professor Jo Littler, City, University of London * This book reminds me of the importance of resilience and solidarity needed in order to stand against the structurally racist academic institutions, that are still not addressing the work of young and old queer academics seriously or intersectionally. A book like this is refreshing and affirming, allowing us to see that the Civil Rights movements of the 1960s and 70s have bloomed in our younger queer academics. I relish in all the possibilities the Presumed Incompetent project has set precedents for, for all those categorized as "The Other." * Gabriella Gutierrez y Muhs, Seattle University, USA * Queer Precarities provides a truly queer mix of theoretical analysis and practical advice/storytelling about mutual aid, about how not to come back to "normal" after the pandemic, about how seemingly small structural changes might make much-needed improvements for the academic precariat, about the ongoing marginalizations of queers of color and queers with disabilities, and many more things that definitely need to be said. Queer Precarities centers voices of those who are not embedded in academia and who "remain in pursuit of a world where we do not need refuge." In the meantime, while queer writers and activists seek to dismantle academiconormativity and rebuild that better world, this book can serve as a refuge, a manifesto, and a guide for us all. * Renny Christopher, Professor of English. Washington State University Vancouver, USA *