Extract

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CHAPTER ONE

Contingent Labor, Contingently Queer

ADAM J. GRETEMAN

 

People are always telling me to make practicable suggestions. You might as well tell me to suggest what people are doing already, or at least suggest improvements which may be incorporated with the wrong methods at present in use.

—JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

INTRODUCTION

Folding cashmere sweaters is an important skill for a Ph.D. these days, at least in my experience. According to the American Association of University Professors, more than 40% of all postsecondary education classes are taught by nontenure stream faculty, which is to say, professors who make, on average, according to the Coalition on the Academic Workforce, $2,700 per course. I am one of these faculty members—called a “lecturer” at one school and an “affiliated faculty member” at another. What connects both is the contingent nature of such labor. I have been living this way—contingently—for a number of years. And I enjoy the institutions I call home, the students I teach, and the faculties I work with. However, as we read stories like that of Margaret Mary Vojtko who died in poverty after teaching as an adjunct for 25 years, the state of higher education and the contingent labor of adjuncts seem ever more pressing to document and engage. ← 3 | 4 →

We are “Roads” scholars, often with no job security, limited access to employee- based healthcare,...