Catching and Making Waves in an Academic Life

I trace my memories growing up in the US Northeast, South, and Midwest; my 8-year gap; my serendipitous encounters leading to university, graduate school, and jobs in the United States and Australia; and my evolving areas of research. Before academia, I was motivated to be economically independent and employable. Once in academia, I was motivated to participate in new waves of thought and to make waves with critiques and new concepts. Timing matters in an academic life. I began when academic work was a site of liberty and transcendence. Today, depending on where you are, academic work is sliding into restricted conditions and precarity and, increasingly, a site of immanence. Still, it is a privileged role, and there are new waves to catch and make, even in hard times.