Episodes

  • Reflection-In-Motion

    Reflection-In-Motion
    May 14 2026
    Reflection-in-Motion: Reimagining Reflection in the Writing Classroom (Utah State UP, 2025) considers how reflective practice is embedded in daily course happenings, centering the experiences of students and teachers in Minority Serving Institutions to amplify underrepresented viewpoints about how reflection works in the writing classroom. Professor Jaclyn Fiscus-Cannaday examines how its availability is subject to teacher/student power dynamics, the literacies welcomed (or not) in the class, the past and present pedagogies that students are engaging with and attending to, and the interactions among humans, materials, and emotions within the rhetorical context. She adopts an intersectional feminist perspective for an inclusive view of how practitioners name, identify, and practice reflection in the everyday moments of writing classrooms. Reflection is used for different rhetorical effects, but because classrooms so often focus on the Westernized view and its emphasis on growth, reflection has the underused and undertheorized potential rhetorical effect of helping students investigate their identities and positionalities, acknowledge deep-rooted ideologies, and consider new perspectives so they can better work across difference. Reflection-in-Motion will inspire teachers and writing program administrators to listen to how students define and practice reflection and why—thus making room for more capacious definitions of reflection and student-centered practices of what reflection can do and be. Guest: Professor Jaclyn Fiscus-Cannaday is assistant professor at the University of Minnesota. She explores how we can learn from communities that support and welcome all writers. Host: Dr. Christina Gessler is a writing coach and developmental editor for academics. She is the creator and producer of the Academic Life podcast. Playlist: Becoming The Writer You Already Are Project Management For Researchers The Grant Writing Guide Feminist Communication Subatomic Writing The Artists Joy: A Guide to Getting Unstuck Working with Your Academic Librarians Dealing with the Fs: Fear and Failure Why A Retreat Might Help: DIY Writing Retreats Monsters in the Archives Pedagogy of Kindness Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can support the show by downloading or sharing episodes. Please join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 300+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 3 mins
  • Fabio Rojas, "From Black Power to Black Studies: How a Radical Social Movement Became an Academic Discipline" (JHU Press, 2010)

    Fabio Rojas, "From Black Power to Black Studies: How a Radical Social Movement Became an Academic Discipline" (JHU Press, 2010)
    May 13 2026
    The black power movement helped redefine African Americans' identity and establish a new racial consciousness in the 1960s. As an influential political force, this movement in turn spawned the academic discipline known as Black Studies. Today there are more than a hundred Black Studies degree programs in the United States, many of them located in America’s elite research institutions. In From Black Power to Black Studies: How a Radical Social Movement Became an Academic Discipline (JHU Press, 2010), Fabio Rojas explores how this radical social movement evolved into a recognized academic discipline. Rojas traces the evolution of Black Studies over more than three decades, beginning with its origins in black nationalist politics. His account includes the 1968 Third World Strike at San Francisco State College, the Ford Foundation’s attempts to shape the field, and a description of Black Studies programs at various American universities. His statistical analyses of protest data illuminate how violent and nonviolent protests influenced the establishment of Black Studies programs. Integrating personal interviews and newly discovered archival material, Rojas documents how social activism can bring about organizational change. Shedding light on the black power movement, Black Studies programs, and American higher education, this historical analysis reveals how radical politics are assimilated into the university system. Interview covers the evolution of Black Studies as a subject area and discipline, the historical role of philanthropy in funding and supporting Black Studies, the comparative existence and need of knowledge production coming from Black Studies think tanks and research centers and institutes, and the State of Black Studies in the 21st Century. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 6 mins
  • Rachel Grace Newman, "The Future in Their Hands: Making Mexico's Foreign-Educated Elite" (U California Press, 2026)

    Rachel Grace Newman, "The Future in Their Hands: Making Mexico's Foreign-Educated Elite" (U California Press, 2026)
    May 10 2026
    The Future in Their Hands: Making Mexico's Foreign-Educated Elite (U California Press, 2026), by Dr. Rachel Grace Newman is a deep history of the politics of foreign education in Mexico, where many influential figures have degrees from European or US institutions. Reconstructing the history of student mobility from the late nineteenth to the late twentieth century, Dr. Newman unveils the social hierarchies, political languages, and institutional mechanisms that created Mexico’s foreign-educated elite. Study abroad began as a private phenomenon for young elites to acquire specific forms of knowledge and to preserve their status. But after the 1910 revolution, elites gradually convinced the Mexican state, under the guise of modernizing the nation, to underwrite their ambitions with merit-based scholarships. Student mobility naturalized the expectation that Mexico’s sovereignty and development required knowledge from elsewhere. For historians of Mexico and other countries with foreign-educated elites, this open-access book reveals the subtle, insidious processes by which states reinforce privilege through education policy. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    59 mins
  • Dennis Sherwood, Missing the Mark: Why So Many School Exam Grades are Wrong – and How to Get Results We Can Trust" (Canbury Press, 2022)

    Dennis Sherwood, Missing the Mark: Why So Many School Exam Grades are Wrong – and How to Get Results We Can Trust" (Canbury Press, 2022)
    May 9 2026
    "One in four grades may be wrong." "25% of exam grades are incorrect." "Grades are misleading and often wrong." In Missing the Mark: Why So Many School Exam Grades are Wrong – and How to Get Results We Can Trust (Canbury Press, 2022) Dennis Sherwood discusses the flaws in the UK exam system, highlighting how one in four grades may be wrong and the systemic issues that prevent accurate assessment. He explores the history, current challenges, and potential solutions to ensure trustworthy exam results. Missing the Mark by Dennis Sherwood Ofqual Official Website UK GCSE Exam System Overview Research on Exam Grading Accuracy (2015) Parliamentary Education Select Committee Reports Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    59 mins
  • Carol Rittner and John K Roth, "This Time: Teaching the Holocaust Today" (‎iPub Cloud, 2026)

    Carol Rittner and John K Roth, "This Time: Teaching the Holocaust Today" (‎iPub Cloud, 2026)
    May 9 2026
    Written for educators, scholars, graduate students, and readers engaged in Holocaust education, genocide studies, history, ethics, religious studies, and political theory, This Time: Teaching the Holocaust Today (‎iPub Cloud, 2026) treats teaching as a consequential act—one inseparable from the political realities in which it occurs. The volume challenges readers to reconsider what responsible Holocaust education demands now, and what it means to teach when historical memory itself is under strain. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 16 mins
  • The Religion Department: An Online Learning Platform with Andrew Mark Henry and Andrew Ali Aghapour

    The Religion Department: An Online Learning Platform with Andrew Mark Henry and Andrew Ali Aghapour
    May 4 2026
    The Religion Department is an online learning platform dedicated to the academic, nonsectarian study of religion, created by the team behind Religion for Breakfast — the YouTube channel with over a million subscribers. Co-founded by Dr. Andrew Mark Henry and Dr. Andrew Ali Aghapour, The Religion Department offers guest lectures, multi-week seminars, and guided reading courses taught by scholars of religion, all designed to make university-level religious studies accessible to anyone, anywhere. Inspired by creator-driven platforms like Dropout TV and Nebula, The Religion Department is built on a user-funded model that compensates scholars fairly for their teaching and expertise. Current offerings include a guided reading of Attar's twelfth-century Sufi masterpiece The Conference of the Birds with Dr. Patrick D'Silva, a 52-week course on key concepts in religious studies led by Dr. Henry, and many more upcoming programs. In this episode, we talk with the co-founders about how Religion for Breakfast grew into something bigger, what The Religion Department offers, and why they believe the academic study of religion deserves a home beyond the traditional university. Learn more and become a member at religiondepartment.com Dr. Andrew Mark Henry is a scholar of late Roman religion who holds a PhD from Boston University. He is the creator and host of Religion for Breakfast, and the 2026 recipient of the American Academy of Religion's Martin E. Marty Award for the Public Understanding of Religion. Dr. Andrew Ali Aghapour is a scholar of religion and science who holds a PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is an award-winning comedian and storyteller, and has served as the Consulting Scholar of Religion and Science for the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. This episode’s host, Jacob Barrett, is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the Religion and Culture track. For more information, visit his website thereluctantamericanist.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    45 mins
  • Radio ReOrient 14:5: Racial Justice, Human Rights and Surveillance, with Alba Kapoor, hosted by Claudia Radiven and Amina Easat-Daas

    Radio ReOrient 14:5: Racial Justice, Human Rights and Surveillance, with Alba Kapoor, hosted by Claudia Radiven and Amina Easat-Daas
    May 1 2026
    In this episode Claudia Radiven and Amina Easat-Daas were joined by Alba Kapoor. Kapoor is the racial justice lead at Amnesty International UK and previously led the policy team at the Runnymede Trust. Alba Kapoor shared the cutting edge work that Amnesty International UK is leading around racial justice, the surveilling of black and brown communities in the UK through existing policy infrastructure such as Prevent, or new and emergent facial recognition technologies. She also discussed forthcoming research from Amnesty examining the silencing of pro-Palestine narratives in academic contexts and the broader questions that this raises around freedoms and rights. Finally, Kapoor linked this to the pressing issues posed by the growth of the far-right in the UK. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    56 mins
  • Ana Fernández-Aballí et al. eds., "Creative and Inclusive Heritage Education: Teaching Handbook for Use in Classrooms, Museums and Organizations" (U Groningen Press, 2025)

    Ana Fernández-Aballí et al. eds., "Creative and Inclusive Heritage Education: Teaching Handbook for Use in Classrooms, Museums and Organizations" (U Groningen Press, 2025)
    Apr 29 2026
    Heritage is a hot topic in public debates today. Many politicians invoke it to exclude marginal groups from belonging to the national story. Yet, in the new two-volume resource for educators Creative and Inclusive Heritage Education, contributors explore how heritage can be used for inclusive experiences in the classroom. The open-access Handbook and an Activity Book provide educators--from high school teachers to university professors to museum guides--with the necessary theoretical tools and practical exercises turn heritage into a vehicle for self-awareness, collective meaning-making and conflict resolution. By helping educators to identify and counter exclusionary narratives, by stimulating their interest in their own histories and those of their students, and by using creative performance techniques, the handbook and the activity book allow educators to make the best of the social and educational value of heritage. In this interview with two of the editors, we discuss the ambitions and experiences of REBELAH, the European Union funded project behind these resources, which brought together creative artists, community organizers and academics in Spain, France, the Netherlands and Hungary. Free, Open Access here. Ana Fernández-Aballí Altamirano is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Groningen working on environmental education and epistemological diversity. Todd Weir is professor of the History of Christianity and Modern Culture at the University of Groningen. His research focuses on religion and secularism in modern Europe. Patricia Salvaia is a psychologist and Research Master’s student at the University of Groningen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    46 mins