PODCAST · society
Academic Aunties
by Ethel Tungohan
Academia. It is a site of exclusion. For those of us who are first-generation, who are racialized, who are women, and who inhabit social locations that are traditionally unrepresented in this space, academia is full of landmines. This is why we need academic aunties. This podcast will bring you stories and advice about how to navigate this treacherous world and maybe even plant the seeds for structural transformation. Come listen to Auntie Ethel and her friends. Episodes drop monthly. Message us on Twitter at @AcademicAuntie and visit us online at academicaunties.com.
Episodes
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Academic Ate (Season finale)
For the final episode of season 6, we turn the mic over to newly minted Ph.D., Dr. Dani Magsumbol and fellow grad student and friend, Tka Pinnock! We're calling this, Academic Ate, where "ate" means "big sister" in Tagalog. They talk about the journey it took to get to the Ph.D. defence, the deep...
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DEI Undone
The disjuncture between the stated goals of equity, diversity, and inclusion policies and their application has long been a theme we've covered on the pod. This week, we continue this conversation with Dr. Sabreena Ghaffar-Siddiqui, co-author of the book, DEI Undone: The Rise, Fall and Rebirth of...
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All About Unions
Higher education is under attack. Programs shut down in response to fascist attacks, faculty being fired for taking political stances, and being forced to do more and more for less and less. These are just a few reminders that academia is not a calling. We are, in fact, academic labourers. And at...
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The Letters
This week we talk to Academic Aunties producer extraordinaire, Dr. Nisha Nath and her co-authors, Dr. Rita Kaur Dhamoon, Dr. Anita Girvan and Dr. Davina Bhandar about their new book, The Letters: Institutional Lives and EDI. It's an amazing work, going deep on a lot of the themes that you hear...
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Writing Retreats
For this episode of the podcast, we tackle writing, writing retreats, and why writing can be, and probably should be, a community-based practice. Last month I went on a writing intensive workshop and retreat, and I recorded a few voice memos documenting my time. Academic Aunties producer, Dr.…
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Running for Office with Veronica Javier
With how abysmal the world is right now, we have probably all felt frustration that our political leaders are, at best, oblivious to our everyday concerns, and at worse, are actively trying to make our lives worse. But how many of us, when looking at all of the problems our world is facing right...
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Moonlight Murder with Uzma Jalaluddin
This week, we are SO excited to talk to Uzma Jalaluddin about her new book, Moonlight Murder! This is the latest instalment in her amazing Detective Aunty series. In our conversation we talk about her love for Agatha Christie, writing, why Scarborough is a hotbed of amazing writers and artists…
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Perimenopause and Menopause
This episode is a long time coming for us. We're tackling perimenopause and menopause. On this episode we talk about the reality of going through perimenopause and menopause in the context of capitalism, a culture of celebrity, the continual erosion of robust public healthcare and medical racism....
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Good Supervision, Bad Supervision
The most important decision that grad students have to make is who to work with as their supervisor. A common joke in grad school is that graduate student-supervisor relationships outlast many marriages. Your choice of supervisor helps determine the trajectory of your graduate and postgraduate...
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Academic Parenting
A few weeks ago my eldest daughter turned 10. It's so incredibly hard to believe because of how truly how fast did time flew. Thinking back 10 years ago, it was an incredibly chaotic time. I had interviewed for a job without knowing I was pregnant. Then after I received my offer, I had to…
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Coming Home, Part 2
On part 2 of Coming Home, we continue our conversation with Professors Mariam Georgia and Eisenstein Staats-Pangowish about what it means when our work is deeply tied to our homelands. This week, we talk about what home means, how we need to unlearn colonial ways of teaching, and the arrogance of...
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Coming Home, Part 1
Last summer, I had an opportunity to return home to the Philippines. It was a bittersweet homecoming. I returned in part because my family and I needed to sort out my dad's estate, but it was also joyful homecoming because I reunited with family and community. Being able to be home where I heard…
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Heated Rivalry
We're just weeks into 2026, but it is already messed up. US imperial attacks on Venezuela, the ICE raids across the US and Renee Good’s murder, the kidnapping of activist Chantal Anicoche by the Armed Forces of the Philippines, continued Israeli attacks in Gaza...it's been a lot. So why are we...
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After Hours Part 2
(Audio fixed) In our last episode for 2025, we welcome back the OG auntie, Dr. Rita Dhamoon, and Academic Aunties producer, Dr. Nisha Nath for the latest instalment of our year-end conversation, Academic Aunties After Hours. It's been quite a year, but it's always wonderful to think about what...
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Academia is an MLM
In academia you are constantly making compromises. In my time, there have been numerous instances when I've found myself having to make compromises, prioritizing academic expectations over family and community. Times where I have to hustle hard, forgoing time with my young kids just to try to get...
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Following Your Instincts
There are many so-called truths in academia. One of them is the belief that academia is a calling, and that you have to relinquish everything for your career. Even if it means leaving everything behind, taking you away from family and support systems. On this episode, we challenge this truth with...
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Colouring Outside the Lines
Academia likes to put people into a box. The pressure to stay within disciplinary boundaries is strong. For those who reject these disciplinary regimes, this can be felt personally, with gatekeepers discouraging this kind of scholarship at every opportunity. On this week's episode, we talk to Dr....
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Nice White Women
For many of our listeners, and certainly in conversations among friends, we talk about how one of the most dangerous figures we've encountered within the university are nice white women, and I don't use the word dangerous lightly. A lot has been written about the exaltation of white womanhood and...
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The Summer I Turned Pretty Old
In academia, it's taboo to be unserious. Not here, though, at Academic Aunties. On today's episode, we show that we can be good academics and also like unserious things by diving deep into one of my guilty pleasures, The Summer I Turned Pretty, streaming on Amazon Prime. The show, despite...
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The Energy We Bring
Season 6 premiere! We've just started the school year and I'm realizing that I am already stressed. How can this be? The year literally just started! My goal this year was to slow down, to take it easy and to not lose sight of my health. But it's so hard to do when it seems like all the good…
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Organizing, Mobilizing...and AI
Season finale! The past year, we’ve talked a lot about just how much we’ve had to fight for the university. From authoritarian leaders who wish to suppress dissent and protests in universities, particularly protests in support of Palestine, to rudderless senior administrators who suspend…
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Communities of Care
The need for care - for radical care, for decolonial care, for accountable and reciprocal and emancipatory care - has never been more obvious. In a world where it is clear that institutions don’t care for us and that many of our elected political leaders just want to amass power and wealth, it is...
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Depleting Higher Education
We are living in an age of fascism where you have political leaders who disregard democratic process and are going full steam ahead in shaping the world the way they want it to look like. And this world includes a depleted higher education sector that they see as enemy number one. All over, we…
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Fear, Heartbreak, Betrayal
Higher education is under attack. You've probably heard about the cases of Mahmoud Kahlil, Rumeysa Ozturk, and Alireza Doroudi. Students, studying in American universities being arrested and disappeared for their political stances. And our academic institutions are all too willing to capitulate…
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DEI in Academia
There is a backlash to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. All around us, we see the dismantlement of various DEI initiatives including in academia. Institutions and corporations that once rushed to put out statements in support of Black Lives Matter, Landback, and other social movements for…
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Fighting for Our University
(This is a reissue of the episode with audio issues corrected) Last week, at the end of the day on a Friday, York University announced the suspension of program admissions for 19 undergraduate programs, including Indigenous Studies, Gender Sexuality Women's studies programs. These cuts occurred...
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Recognizing Our Messy Leaky Bodies
In academia, we assume that our value rests solely with our brains. The smarter we are, the more grants and publications we have, the more value we give to our institutions, to our fields, to our professions. What this means is that anything that gets in the way of our ability to produce is seen…
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I am not my mind
Lately, I've been thinking a lot about the passage of time, about priorities, about health, about our larger purpose. I've been thinking, too, about intentionality. What is it that I want to do with my career? Am I doing the work that feeds me and my community? Or am I pursuing projects not…
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Reference Letters
If you have had to write or request an academic reference letter, which is probably all of you, then you know that there is a whole, mysterious hidden curriculum behind them. On this episode, Ethel and Nisha talk about what it's like to write reference letters, how letter readers react to…
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Remembering Boyet
What is it like to go into the holiday season when grieving the loss of a loved one? How do we honour and remember people who are no longer with us? In this episode, I remember my dad, Leonides Tungohan - or Boyet - for short. With special guests, Winifred and Georgina, we talk about our wishes…
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Remagination
Can we reimagine new ways living and being? Our guest this week certainly did so. After suffering tremendous loss during the pandemic, including the loss of her son, Dr. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez gave up her tenured faculty position as a full professor at UC Davis to become land steward of...
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What happens now?
As I record this episode, it's been about six hours after the major news networks have declared that Donald Trump will once again be the President of the United States. I've got a lot of feelings. I'm unsurprised, but also disheartened. I'm still processing all of this and I know you are too. So...
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Demystifying Book Publishing
We take a deep dive into the world of academic book publishing. If you're in academia, you probably have, or want to work with a university press to publish your work. And at the heart of the book publishing process are university press editors. But many scholars don't know what it is that…
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One Year Later
Over the months, we have felt compelled to focus episodes on the ongoing genocide in Gaza, as well as on the implications here via the repression of solidarity work. While the brutality of the Israeli state extends back decades and decades to the Nakba, by the time this episode is released, it...
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Academic Assholes Redux
The OG academic aunties are back! On the season 5 premiere, we have Dr. Nisha Nath and Dr. Mariam Georgis, who appeared on the very first episode of the pod, to talk about what how the world of academic assholes have changed since we started Academic Aunties. We talk new types of assholes we've...
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Student Encampments for Palestine
This is normally a time when we’re readying ourselves for the term, often with optimism, energy, and hope for what the new year will bring. But I know I speak for many when I say that this year feels different. This Fall marks almost a year of relentless conflict in Gaza. And rather than a…
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Feminist Killjoy Book Club
On the Season 4 finale, we revisit Sara Ahmed's new book, The Feminist Killjoy Handbook: The Radical Potential of Getting in the Way, with our very own feminist killjoy book club! We're joined by Rita Dhamoon, Tka Pinnock, and our very own producer, Nisha Nath. We talk about why the book…
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We didn't need the university, it needed us
We've talked a lot this season about the accelerating attacks on academic freedom, including the campaigns of repression against expressions of Palestine solidarity. Student groups, faculty and staff are increasingly surveilled, policed and targeted with spurious charges of antisemitism if they...
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Suing for Silence with Mandi Gray
A few days ago, we recognized International Women’s Day. Every year we shine a spotlight on the continuing realities of gender-based discrimination and gender-based violence worldwide. So on this episode, we are so glad to have Dr. Mandi Gray. She has just released a new book “Suing for Silence:...
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There Can Only Be One
Without community, a I wouldn’t have lasted through grad school and the years since. For me, in grad school, a special community that I was with were the group of critical Filipinx scholars who I’ve since grown with over the years. We called ourselves the “Kritikal Kolektibo,” and we were grad...
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Fighting Feelings with Gulzar Charania
We’re in conversation with Dr. Gulzar Charania about her incredible new book “Fighting Feelings: Lessons in Gendered Racism and Queer Life.” Fighting Feelings is about Black and racialized women, answering the question: “how and in what directions do we learn to think, act, and live in relation…
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One Foot In, One Foot Out
For many in academia, there is always a certain ambivalence about being here. And historically, institutions have been pretty ambivalent about our presence here too. Academia has traditionally never been a place for those who are Black, Indigenous, women of colour. For many scholars, a pragmatic...
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How to Make 2024 Easier
We're just a couple of weeks into 2024 and we are tired. After a restful break, we are back to the intense pressures of teaching, advising, and dealing with administrative tasks, plus all of the care and domestic responsibilities that many women have to also take on. Host, Ethel Tungohan, wanted...
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Are we allowed to rest?
As the year comes to a close, many of us are feeling unsettled. After the rush of marking, teaching, and activism, are we allowed to rest during this holiday season? In this episode, Dr. Ethel Tungohan and Dr. Nisha Nath close out 2023 talking about why rest is political, and how community care…
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Striving for Systemic Safety
We recently passed the 34th anniversary of the École Polytechnique anti-feminist shootings. The sad thing is that this horrendous crime isn't a thing of the past. From a stabbing attack on a Gender Issues course at the University of Waterloo in June, to the mass shooting at the University of...
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The Violence We Face
In this episode of Academic Aunties, host Dr. Ethel Tungohan talks to Dr. Rebecca Major about the realities of gendered, racialized violence in academia. Dr. Major reflects on her own personal experiences with threats and harassment as an Indigenous scholar, which escalated to involve doxing and...
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Academic Freedom and Palestine
As the staggering death toll in Palestine rises, we talk about the censuring of Palestine solidarity discourse and the weaponization of anti-racism and equity, diversity, and inclusion language to silence and attack activists and scholars calling for peace. Joining Ethel is Dr. Rachel Brown, an...
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What We Need To Know About Gaza
The last few weeks have been devastating. Like many of you, I have been feeling this sense of immobilization, of helplessness, as we witnessed Hamas’s attack in Israel that killed 1,400 civilians and the Israeli state’s bombing of Gaza that, as of the time of taping in late October 2023, have...
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The Feminist Killjoy Handbook with Sara Ahmed
Sara Ahmed, author, scholar, and one of our feminist heroes joins us to talk about her new book, The Feminist Killjoy Handbook! Sara's work both as a scholar in the academy working on queer phenomenology, on post coloniality, and on emotions, as well as her work after she left the academy has…
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How's Your September Going?
We are back to school! So why do we feel so exhausted? On the season 4 premiere Ethel and Nisha listen to some academic aunties audio diaries about how September is going so far. We talk about why there are so many deadlines at this busy time of the year and what we can do to help make things…
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Academia. It is a site of exclusion. For those of us who are first-generation, who are racialized, who are women, and who inhabit social locations that are traditionally unrepresented in this space, academia is full of landmines. This is why we need academic aunties. This podcast will bring you stories and advice about how to navigate this treacherous world and maybe even plant the seeds for structural transformation. Come listen to Auntie Ethel and her friends. Episodes drop monthly. Message us on Twitter at @AcademicAuntie and visit us online at academicaunties.com.
HOSTED BY
Ethel Tungohan
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Academic Aunties have?
Academic Aunties currently has 96 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Academic Aunties about?
Academia. It is a site of exclusion. For those of us who are first-generation, who are racialized, who are women, and who inhabit social locations that are traditionally unrepresented in this space, academia is full of landmines. This is why we need academic aunties. This podcast will bring you...
How often does Academic Aunties release new episodes?
Academic Aunties has 96 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Academic Aunties?
You can listen to Academic Aunties on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Academic Aunties?
Academic Aunties is created and hosted by Ethel Tungohan.
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