Symposia Archives - Page 2 of 5

Sex Life of a Vector

Why do rats matter?

April 5, 2023 • by Evangeline Riddiford Graham

Rats continue to bear witness, and the close quarters of our shared history, as well as our many assassination attempts (on their bodies and on their characters), have surely sharpened rats’ noses to the whiff of human hypocrisy....

Rats: A Cautionary Tail

Report from the Rat Academy

Human New Yorkers learn about pest control in Rat Academy. Why should we assume local rodents are any less organized?

April 5, 2023 • by Radhika Subramaniam

A report from the Rat Academy about the learning, discourse, and fellowship in the actions of daily life as a rat....

Rats: A Cautionary Tail

Hitchhikers and Stowaways

“Infection” describes the properties of settler knowledge and settler memory more than it does the properties of rats

April 4, 2023 • by Anna Boswell

In the event of European intervention in the Pacific, the introduction of northern-world rats was more likely to happen than not. ...

Rats: A Cautionary Tail

The Rat with a Right to Free Speech

For decades, an inflatable rat has defended the rights of U.S. workers. Now, it turns out the balloon known as “Scabby” needs a union

April 4, 2023 • by Cassandra Brey

Scabby remains a fixture in the world of the union—much like real rats are a fixture of New York City....

Rats: A Cautionary Tail

How to Kill 100 Rats

A manager tackles rats with a sense of personal accountability in one very infested coffee shop

April 3, 2023 • by Curran Boyd

Handling a decaying rat can be detrimental to coffee quality control for the rest of your shift. ...

Rats: A Cautionary Tail

“Everyone Has a Role in Rat Control”

Inside NYC’s Rat Academy and Pest Control Services

April 3, 2023 • by Caroline Bragdon and Katy Einerson

The more community members get involved in addressing the rat problem, the better it will be for all of us....

Rats: A Cautionary Tail

Extermination: From Plague, to War

If coexistence is unavoidable, why is “war on rats” discourse so ubiquitous?

April 3, 2023 • by Rafi Youatt

While extermination itself continues to present itself as the desired outcome in cities, the reality is that coexistence with rats is now tacitly accepted at the species level, even while death is pursued at individual and sub-population levels....

Education

I Want to Know Who I Am At Work When I Am Not Under Duress

Riffs on Boundaries, Protection, and Inspiration

April 28, 2022 • by Gina Athena Ulysse

Survival is not guaranteed. In between the invitation to participate in this special issue and sitting down to write, bell hooks and Valerie Boyd joined the realm of ancestors. When Black women in the academy die, Black women in the academy take notice. ...

I Want to Know Who I Am At Work When I Am Not Under Duress

Education

Building the House You Want to Live and Teach In

How women’s studies nurtured radical transformation at Spelman College

April 28, 2022 • by Beverly Guy-Sheftall

Even though I was an untenured professor I decided that I would position myself as a “radical” teacher who would try and disrupt some of the “mis-education” that the curriculum which at the time, mirrored the traditional higher education curriculum throughout the United States. ...

Building the House You Want to Live and Teach In

Education

How They See Us—and How We Learn to See Ourselves

The importance of mentoring for Black students

April 28, 2022 • by Sylvester A. Johnson

Mentorship, in which I reassure students that we inhabit the same reality when it comes to racism, is an especially personal and rewarding aspect of my professional life. I approach mentorship through emphasizing to every student that they have unique potential and absolutely belong in the academic world, regardless of ...

How They See Us—and How We Learn to See Ourselves

Education

Leading While Black

An introduction to the special issue, “Teaching While Black”

April 28, 2022 • by Dwight A. McBride

Indeed, the sad truth is that many of the slights, insults, and aggressions experienced by the dedicated teachers collected here (I don’t think of the casual ugliness which many of us navigate as “micro-aggressions”) are duplicated within higher education’s administrative spaces....

Education

“‘Look, a Negro’ … in the Academy”

When white students say what they really think, our Black bodies become a battlefield

April 28, 2022 • by Davarian L. Baldwin and Bridgette Baldwin

I was not prepared for the lesson the students would teach me. “Professor Baldwin is the worst professor I have ever had, and she is Black, enough said.” Did I just read that correctly? Am I the absolute worst professor? Is it because I am Black? Is my Blackness a ...