Writing and Unrecognized Academic Labor

Book excerpt: Writing and Unrecognized Academic Labor acknowledges that much of the work we do to sustain the academy remains without recognition. It demonstrates that it is not only published work that influences development and innovation in scholarship. The book rethinks the "publish or perish" system to show that good, unrecognized work is a vital part of scaffolding the growth of the academy and individual academic careers. It takes openness and transparency as a blueprint to outline plans for not only producing but also reimagining key markers of academic life, such as dissertations without anxieties of influence, conferences without directors, journals without gatekeepers, large-sample peer review, and teaching and learning beyond the university discourse. A sustainable community model of academic life should have belonged to each of us from the start. Author James Salvo shows us that "nothing will be lost when everything is given away. Thus, we ought to share fearlessly." This book is suitable for all graduate students and researchers in qualitative inquiry and across disciplines who seek a new model for the value of their work.