Academic Aunties

03/03/2025

Our inaugural email newsletter goes out tomorrow at noon ET! In this edition we talk about the management consultant grifters infiltrating higher ed. Be the first to read it by subscribing at newsletter.academicaunties.com!

Take care. Be kind to yourself. And don’t be an as***le.

26/02/2025

Our universities are in crisis...but not in the way that senior leadership wants us to believe.

In this special episode of , our fave auntie Dr. tackles York University's recent announcement of the suspension of program admissions for 19 undergraduate programs, including Indigenous Studies, and Gender, Sexuality & Women's studies. York is not alone in this wider attack on higher education at academic institutions around the world!

Have a listen to Ethel, Dr. Ena Dua, Dr. Sara Rotz and Dr. , in an episode that weaves together how to make sense of what is going on, but most importantly, how to ACT NOW.

Find us at .com, where you can sign up for our new mailing list! Subscribe to the podcast through your fave podcast app, and share widely!

26/11/2024

Join our favourite in conversation with Dr. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez in this stunning episode about what it can look like to 're-imagine everything' when one feels compelled to leave the academe. Have a listen to this generative conversation on ecological justice, capitalism, the academy, and transformative possibilities inspired by the land steward at the beautiful , Dr. Rodriguez.

Find us at .com and subscribe to the podcast through your fave podcast app! 🌿

14/11/2024

ran a workshop on “care and subversion at work” at Inspiring Women Among Us event. What’s your strategy for subversion?

12/11/2024

That’s right. We made a t-shirt.

07/11/2024

What happens now? The fight continues. Listen to our thoughts about the election and where we go from here on our latest episode. Academicaunties.com or your favourite podcast app.

21/10/2024

We have all experienced incredibly toxic behaviour in academia about the pettiest, smallest things. So we're working on a episode about this and we'd love to share your stories. Send us an email at [email protected] or DM us! We'll keep it anonymous, of course. We'd love to hear from you.

10/10/2024

27/09/2024

We’re working on an episode on academic pettiness and we need your stories! DM us your stories or email us at [email protected] about your most vicious petty experiences about the lost irrelevant or small things. We’ll keep it anonymous.

28/08/2024

Special bonus episode about student encampments in solidarity with Palestine!

As we gear up for the start of the academic year, we are coming off of a wave of student organizing on university campuses, alongside extraordinary forms of repression by university administration. All the while, we inch closer to the grim one year anniversary of the catastrophic violence being unleashed upon Palestinians by Israel.

Please have a listen to this important conversation about the experiences of organizing in solidarity with Palestinians on one Canadian campus - the University of Alberta. Have a listen to our conversation with Dr. Muna Saleh and a principled Palestinian student activist, and please share widely.

28/08/2024

We've missed you! A lot has happened since the last episode. Ethel documents some of this in her blog at gradstudentdrone.tumblr.com). So this upcoming season, premiering later this Fall, will deal with themes of grief and loss, but also the ways in which these spaces of community we build are sacred because that’s how we keep going. Join us for Season 5, wherever you get your podcasts.

04/10/2023

AAAHHH! This is a HUGE day for Academic Aunties! In today's episode, which we are releasing to coincide with the release of Sara Ahmed's latest book, "The Feminist Killjoy Handbook," Academic Aunties gets to have a long and generative and inspiring convo with Sara herself!!!! We talk about the academic aunties in Sara's life, feminist killjoy maxims, 'paper feminist killjoys', and many, many more!

https://www.academicaunties.com/

Also, go read the "Feminist Killjoy Handbook!" It is an awesome book!

We use cookies on this site to improve your experience on this site and to track usage statistics to better understand our audience. By using our site or clicking Accept, you agree to our use of cookies.

20/09/2023

How is your September going? On the latest episode, Ethel and Nisha listen to your voice memos and talk about the false urgency of deadlines, exhaustion and ways to cope! Listen now on your fav podcast app and at

We are back to school! So why do we feel so exhausted? On the season 4 premiere Ethel and Nisha listen to some academic aunties audio diaries about how September is going so far. We talk about why there are so many deadlines at this busy time of the year…

04/07/2023

We have a really important episode out now. Yilin Wang is an award winning writer, poet, editor, and translator based in Vancouver, and recently has been passionately working on translating the works of 19th century feminist poet, Qiu Jin. So it came as a bit of a shock when she found out that the British Museum–that big national institution, holder of stolen artifacts, and symbol of British colonialism–had been using her translations in a major exhibit without credit, and importantly, without permission.

In this special “emergency” episode, we talk to Yilin about her fight to get the British Museum to own up to and rectify their mistake, and the broader systemic issues of erasure and academic theft that translators and writers constantly face.

And we talk about how listeners can help by contributing to her legal fund to get the British Museum to make things right and ensure this never happens again.

https://www.academicaunties.com/episodes/namethetranslator/

Donate to the cause here: https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/british-museum-copyright-moral-rights-infringement/

I'm a Chinese Canadian writer, poet, and translator. My book of poetry translations, The Lantern and the Night Moths, is forthcoming with Invisible Publishing in Spring 2024. www.yilinwang.com

05/04/2023

So cool to have been featured in Sociological Review's list of the six best podcasts on monarchy, the royals, empire and class podcasts to listen to!

Laura Clancy rounds up the top six new podcasts on monarchy, covering everything from whiteness to colonial legacies.

02/12/2022

New podcast episode out! It seems like academics would rather talk about their s*x lives than talk about their salaries. So in today’s episode, we talk to Dr. Rebecca Major about one of the biggest taboos in academia: money. We talk about how hard it is for first-gen academics to make ends meet, and the bougie norms of academia that make it difficult for them to talk about these struggles.

Academics would rather talk about their s*x lives than talk about their salaries. So in today's episode, we talk to Dr. Rebecca Major about one of the biggest taboos in academia: money. We talk about how hard it is for many first-gen academics to make ends meet, and the bougie…

16/11/2022

How we appear, our dress, our hair, our style, how we carry ourselves are all things that we as marginalized academics are being judged against. Do we look the part of the academic? Do we want to? To talk about this we welcome Dr. Nadia Brown, a Professor of Government and the Director of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at Georgetown University, and Dr. Danielle Lemi, Tower Center Fellow at the Tower Center at Southern Methodist University.

They recently released an amazing book, Sister Style, The Politics of Appearance for Black Women Political Elites, that unpacks the politics of appearance and respectability. We talk about this book and how their study of Black women political elites mirror the experiences we have in academia.

How we appear, our dress, our hair, our style, how we carry ourselves are all things that we as marginalized academics are being judged against. Do we look the part of the academic? Do we want to? To talk about this we welcome Dr. Nadia Brown, a Professor of Government…