Be/com/ing Academic was a one-day symposium, which took place on the 24th of May 2017, organised by doctoral students in the School of Education and Social Work at the University of Sussex.
On this site, under ‘Symposium’, you can access details of the symposium, including the Call for Submissions (now closed), and the Programme for the event.
In addition to the event, we wanted to create a place aside from at the symposium for doctoral and early career researchers to discuss their emotional responses to academia and the emotional work involved in being and becoming academic. We wanted to keep the conversation revolving around the way that emotions create and sustain our academic identities, and you can find contributions on this theme by those involved in running and those taking part in the symposium under the ‘Personal Experiences’ section.
We aim to begin to unpack the what has been labelled ‘imposter syndrome,’ widely applied by those in academia to their own experiences, yet rarely critically evaluated for its effects, not only on the researchers’ wellbeing but also on the knowledge that they produce. Feelings of vulnerability in academic spaces may impact the relationship researchers have with more experienced academics (most notably their supervisors), the kinds of theoretical frameworks a researcher feels obligated to draw upon and the ways in which they do or do not disseminate their research to wider audiences and contexts.
We welcome contributions, particularly from doctoral and early career researchers; if you’d like to write something, please email us at: becomingacademic2017@gmail.com.
Be/com/ing Academic 