Academic Outsider: Stories of Exclusion and Hope

by Victoria Reyes

Many enter the academy with dreams of doing good; this is a book about how the institution fails them, especially if they are considered "outsiders."

Tenure-track, published author, recipient of prestigious fellowships and awards—these credentials mark Victoria Reyes as somebody who has achieved the status of insider in the academy. Woman of color, family history of sexual violence, first generation, mother—these qualities place Reyes on the margins of the academy; a person who does not see herself reflected in its models of excellence.

This contradiction allows Reyes to theorize the conditional citizenship of academic life—a liminal status occupied by a rapidly growing proportion of the academy, as the majority white, male, and affluent space simultaneously transforms and resists transformation. Reyes blends her own personal experiences with the tools of sociology to lay bare the ways in which the structures of the university and the people working within it continue to keep their traditionally marginalized members relegated to symbolic status, somewhere outside the center.

Reyes confronts the impossibility of success in the midst of competing and contradictory needs—from navigating coded language, to balancing professional expectations with care-taking responsibilities, to combating the literal exclusions of outmoded and hierarchical rules. Her searing commentary takes on, with sensitivity and fury, the urgent call for academic justice.

Genres: Sociology, Nonfiction, Academia, Memoir

Paperback

Published January 1, 2022

Reviews

[DM · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful set of essays about exclusion in higher Ed. Appreciate the authors honesty and loved the critique of advice columns; the framing of “academic justice” was compelling. I do think she leaned heavily into the trope of “black feminism as salvation for the academy” without really delving into the implications (cf the amazing Jen Nash’s work). I will say it’s very interesting how the same set of authors are canonized in ways that sometimes homogenizes their perspectives (black feminist sociology is not a monolith where everyone agrees...) I also wonder how some of the specific things she discusses are refracted through sociology - for example, the angst about “me-search” and objectivity, but practices of exclusion might operate very differently in a field like
Philosophy or classics…

[Denzil Streete, PhD · Rating 5 out of 5]

As gut wrenching and authentic a book as you’d ever read of the struggle of academic citizenship. Reyes takes the reader through the underbelly of the academy without embellishment. A must read for graduate students and junior faculty navigating academic corridors.

[Dalila Sumani · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent read!

[Gisela RC · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book to help you to understand and feel understood.

[ash · Rating 4 out of 5]

good thing to pick up the summer before i go to grad school lol