The Politics of Academic Labor in Communication Studies

Check out Kathleen McConnell's article "Of Careers and Curricula Vitae: Losing Track of Academic Professionalism" in the International Journal of Communication (IJoC) special section on "The Politics of Academic Labor in Communication Studies." Edited by Jonathan Sterne, this special section features twenty-one authors who raise difficult questions about academic labor in our field. We may have learned to speak of our work as a calling, but it is also a job. Our jobs are changing, and there are fewer of them. What is to be done? English, history and anthropology have rich discussions of the politics of academic labor; it's time for people in communication studies to join them in reflections on the future of universities and colleges and our place in them. These articles are meant to spur further conversation in organizing our departments, universities, and associations, as well as in coalition with others who hope to defend and advance higher education.

Contributors include Sarah Banet-Weiser, Fernando Delgado, Thomas Discenna, Michael Griffin, Jayson Harsin, Mark Hayward, Alex Juhasz, Kembrew McLeod, Kathleen F. McConnell, Toby Miller, Michael Z. Newman, Amy Pason, Victor Pickard, Michelle Rodino-Colocino, Joel Saxe, Carol Stabile, Ted Striphas, Ira Wagman and two chairs who elected to remain anonymous so they could tell their stories candidly.

Visit IJoC at http://ijoc.org to read these essays and more.