Resilience: Queer Professors from the Working Class (Introduction)

Abstract

This is the Introduction to RESILIENCE a book in which thirteen professors recount their experiences growing up in poverty or working class households and the different paths that led them to become academics. The authors range in age from retirees to people still early in their careers. Some were raised in big cities while others grew up in small towns or on farms. Their religious affiliations, family situations, and sexual proclivities vary in equally interesting ways. The authors taught assorted subjects at many levels, going from English to earth science and from doctoral seminars to community college classes. There were two scholars of color in the mix while there was a roughly even split between males and females. One contributor is a higher education administrator who had done some college-level teaching and whose story was included because it adds yet another dimension to the book. All the authors are native born and except for one work at an American college or university. The exception teaches in Britain and was included for two reasons. First, her chapter adds an "overseas" perspective and, second, perhaps her essay will encourage others to produce similar anthologies, but with a strictly international flavor.

Keywords: diversity, university faculty, queer studies, social class, classism, professors