[Xmca-l] Re: ZeroHours professor dies in poverty

[Jenna McWilliams]

I've seen this article make the rounds through Facebook and Twitter this week. My academic friends are particularly outraged...as if "this" (poverty, homelessness, death by poverty) shouldn't happen to "us" (academics rooted firmly in the middle class). 

I imagine the truth of this story, if a truth can be located, is somewhere between the two stories that Bruce and Martin sent out. I also think it takes a particular kind of hubris to get up in arms about poverty only (especially) when it hits "one of our own." Where is the general outrage about poverty, homelessness, and death by poverty when it attacks the people it more typically attacks--the ones who we assume to be different from "us" in ways that keep "us" safe from "their" fate?

 



Jenna McWilliams
Cultural-Historical Research SIG Communications Chair
Learning Sciences Program, Indiana University

~
jenmcwil@indiana.edu
jennamcjenna@gmail.com



On Sep 21, 2013, at 9:21 AM, Martin John Packer wrote:

> Bruce,
> 
> I don't know this case personally, and I do think that adjuncts are treated poorly, but the university has responded to some of the specific claims made in the article you linked to.
> 
> <http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/news/education/duquesne-disputes-claims-over-death-of-adjunct-professor-704143/>
> 
> Martin
> 
> On Sep 21, 2013, at 4:58 AM, Bruce Robinson <bruce@brucerob.eu> wrote:
> 
>> Union Solidarity Int (@USILive) tweeted at 2:18pm - 19 Sep 13: 
>> 
>> Death of an adjunct post-gazette.com/stories/opinio… < powerful story via @DrDonnaYates: #ZeroHours professor dies in poverty @MahmoonaShah (https://twitter.com/USILive/status/381355561293332482)
>> 
>> Alternative link: https://t.co/redirect?url=http%3A%2F%2Ft.co%2FXIw32rqlcy&sig=19807c98edb2246f68730727d01a897b7b95fadc&uid=90759395&iid=80557aab-cde7-4aeb-a08d-c78c45dad949&nid=12+300+20130919&t=1
>> 
>> Get the official Twitter app at https://twitter.com/download
>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> Sent from Kaiten Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
>> 
> 
> 
>