Resilience: Queer Professors from the Working Class

by Kenneth Oldfield (Editor), Richard Gregory Johnson III (Series Editor)

Academia can be overwhelmingly foreign and hostile to those who have poor or working-class backgrounds. For people who are from the working class and also queer, the obstacles to earning a graduate degree may prove insurmountable. Frequently discouraged from attending college in the first place, these students often struggle to pay for their education while they simultaneously battle prejudice and discrimination because of their sexual orientation and blue-collar backgrounds. Resilience offers inspiring personal stories of those who made thirteen professors and administrators provide their moving accounts of struggle, marginalization, and triumph in the accomplishments that their parents, guidance counselors, and sometimes even they themselves would have thought out of reach. These scholars write in a manner that will enable readers to reconsider their own assumptions and to empathize with the oppression that accompanies being defined as "other."

Genres: Nonfiction, Queer, LGBT

254 pages, Paperback

First published November 6, 2008

Reviews

[20hrsinamerica]

I can't recommend this book enough. A great collection of narratives discussing queer identities, race, and class and their intersection. Very powerful, especially for anyone in academia (or planning on it).

[Kel]

It just feels a little outdated and most of the people included were of a different generation. It's definitely valuable but I was hoping for some younger professors with different perspectives - would love to see a newer version of this!