Twenty-two years ago my mom drove me from my summer job at the family business in Ontario to begin my first year of university in North Carolina.
Seventeen years ago I moved from the interior of British Columbia to Quebec to start my Masters at McGill.
Fifteen years ago I moved from Montreal to Calgary to start a PhD.
Ten years ago I moved across the country to start a ten-month contract as Dalhousie.
Nine years ago we began Hook & Eye: Fast Feminism, Slow Academe.
Six years ago I started a twelve-month contract at Mount Allison University.
Five years ago I was teaching sessionally and my partner was teaching on contract. We had a five month old infant and no regular child care.
Four years ago I was on an with-month contract at Acadia University.
Three years ago I started a tenure-track position.
So much of my life has been organized around the ebb and flow of an academic timeline. At times this has felt thrilling. At others, it has been oppressive and scary. Often, it has been something in between, and much of that has been tied to the more-or-less precarious state I’ve been living.
As we enter this new school year I find myself reflecting not only on my own trajectory–warts, roses, and all the rest of it–I find myself thinking about the ways in which communities are made and re-made in the spaces around and in academia. Hook & Eye was imagined as one such possible space.
This year, as we revivify the work we do here, and as we look toward a full decade of feminist academic blogging, I find myself grateful for what has come before, and excited for what is to come.
Welcome. Welcome back. Let’s get to work, and let’s balance that work with the rest of our fulsome lives.
Hook & Eye 