“Touring the Abyss with dear elia: Unwellness and Care in the University”
Friday, Feb. 14, noon–1 p.m.
Register in advance to attend this webinar!
Abstract: Join Dr. Mimi Khúc as she shares her work on unwellness and the university from her new book, dear elia: Letters from the Asian American Abyss. Applying her framework of a “pedagogy of unwellness,” Dr. Khúc explores the contours of student and faculty unwellness and realizes that academic hyperproductivity across university strata is a kind of unrelenting dehumanization that relies on something she names “compulsory wellness” — the pressure to always pretend you are OK and achieve at the highest levels. We in the university live and work in a machine that makes us unwell while not allowing us to be unwell and punishes us for being unwell and asks us to punish others for being unwell so that we can prove we are well. Join this event to explore together how to disinvest in this form of university wellness and begin to build structures of care that we need.
Bio: Mimi Khúc, PhD, is a writer, scholar, and teacher of things unwell. She is the creator of the mental health projects Open in Emergency and the Asian American Tarot, and the author of dear elia: Letters from the Asian American Abyss, a deep dive into the depths of Asian American unwellness at the intersections of ableism, model minoritization, and the university, and an exploration of new approaches to building collective care.
