What does power abuse look and feel like in the academic world? How does it affect university faculty, students, education and research? What can we do to counteract and prevent power abuse? These questions are addressed in this collection of autobiographical poems, essays and illustrations about academia. The contributors reflect on individual experiences as well as underlying institutional structures, providing original perspectives on bullying, sexual harassment, discrimination, and other forms of power abuse in academic workplaces. They share their stories in order to break the culture of silence around power abuse in academia and point out pathways for constructive change.

Critical Storytelling in Uncritical Times shares the stories of undergraduate students and educators in U.S. higher education. Storytellers in this volume grapple with issues of bullying, stigma surrounding mental health, cultural barriers, gender inequity, and other forms of struggle in educational settings. The disciplinary backgrounds of the authors are diverse, including Psychology, English, Communication Studies, Business, and Educational Foundations. The authors write stories about their role(s) in resisting (or failing to resist) oppressive conditions in schooling, and their contributions draw attention to critical problems in 21st century education. This anthology was planned, written, and edited by students and four faculty members. The stories shared in each chapter were completely at the discretion of the contributor. By making themselves vulnerable, participants investigated stories of personal and social import. This book engages a community of critical voices in an age where critical storytelling has never mattered more.

Critical Storytelling in Uncritical Times shares the stories of students and a professor in a Cultural Foundations of Education Course. Storytellers in this volume grapple with issues of white privilege, racial microaggressions, bullying, cultural barriers, immigration, and other forms of struggle in educational settings.

Hostile work environments in the U.S. have been long examined, beginning with the pioneering work of Carroll Brodsky (1976), which produced the idea of workplace bullying. Academic bullying, a term that derived from the concept of broader workplace bullying, is situated specifically within the academic work environment. While academic bullying has gained attention over the last two decades, there is still a paucity of research that investigates bullying within the ivory tower, and the effects it has on faculty. Furthermore, researchers have found that bullying is almost three times as likely to occur in educational spaces as compared with other professional settings (Gupta et al., 2017). This study sought to understand the lived experiences of faculty who have encountered academic bullying at four-year institutions, how these experiences impact their work and personal lives, and how power dynamics and institutional failure contribute to these experiences. Guided by the theory of social closure and engaging critical narrative inquiry, findings reveal that faculty of color are often targets of bullying based on their minoritized identities, and that academic bullying often stems from an abuse of power from those with social privileges and positional power. The results are of critical importance to university leadership, including provosts and academic deans, as well as department chairs and faculty in an effort to retain exceptional talent and reduce workplace violence.

In Complaint! Sara Ahmed examines what we can learn about power from those who complain about abuses of power. Drawing on oral and written testimonies from academics and students who have made complaints about harassment, bullying, and unequal working conditions at universities, Ahmed explores the gap between what is supposed to happen when complaints are made and what actually happens. To make complaints within institutions is to learn how they work and for whom they work: complaint as feminist pedagogy. Ahmed explores how complaints are made behind closed doors and how doors are often closed on those who complain. To open these doors---to get complaints through, keep them going, or keep them alive---Ahmed emphasizes, requires forming new kinds of collectives. This book offers a systematic analysis of the methods used to stop complaints and a powerful and poetic meditation on what complaints can be used to do. Following a long lineage of Black feminist and feminist of color critiques of the university, Ahmed delivers a timely consideration of how institutional change becomes possible and why it is necessary.

Stories are everywhere around us, from the ads on TV or music video clips to the more sophisticated stories told by books or movies. Everything comes wrapped in a story, and the means employed to weave the narrative thread are just as important as the story itself. In this context, there is a need to understand the role storytelling plays in contemporary society, which has changed drastically in recent decades. Modern global society is no longer exclusively dominated by the time-tested narrative media such as literature or films because new media such as videogames or social platforms have changed the way we understand, create, and replicate stories. The Handbook of Research on Contemporary Storytelling Methods Across New Media and Disciplines is a comprehensive reference book that provides the relevant theoretical framework that concerns storytelling in modern society, as well as the newest and most varied analyses and case studies in the field. The chapters of this extensive volume follow the construction and interpretation of stories across a plethora of contemporary media and disciplines. By bringing together radical forms of storytelling in traditional disciplines and methods of telling stories across newer media, this book intersects themes that include interactive storytelling and narrative theory across advertisements, social media, and knowledge-sharing platforms, among others. It is targeted towards professionals, researchers, and students working or studying in the fields of narratology, literature, media studies, marketing and communication, anthropology, religion, or film studies. Moreover, for interested executives and entrepreneurs or prospective influencers, the chapters dedicated to marketing and social media may also provide insights into both the theoretical and the practical aspects of harnessing the power of storytelling in order to create a cohesive and impactful online image.