Description
Book SynopsisAddressing in depth the reality that women of color, particularly Black women, face compounded exploitation and economic inequality within the neoliberal university. More Black women are graduating with advanced degrees than ever before. Despite the fact that their educational and professional opportunities should be expanding, highly educated Black women face strained and worsening economic, material, and labor conditions in graduate school and along their academic career trajectory. Black women are less likely to be funded as graduate students, are disproportionately hired as contingent faculty, are trained and hired within undervalued disciplines, and incur the highest levels of educational debt. In Lean Semesters, Sekile M. Nzinga argues that the corporatized universitylong celebrated as a purveyor of progress and opportunityactually systematically indebts and disposes of Black women's bodies, their intellectual contributions, and their potential en masse. Insisting that shifts i
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Introduction. The University as Hyper-Producer of Inequity
Chapter 1. Mortgaging Our Brains: Black Women, Privatization, and Subprime PhDs
Chapter 2. Ain't I Precarious? Black Academic Women as Contingent
Chapter 3. Families Devalued: Black Academic Women and the Neoliberal Era's Family Tariff
Chapter 4. Jumping Mountains: Resisting the Marketized University
Conclusion. Statement of Solidarity
Appendix A. Our Truths Interview Guide
Appendix B. Resources and Organizations
Notes
Bibliography
Index
