Facebook for Professors: Academia.edu and the Converging Logics of Social Media and Academic Self-Branding

Given widespread labor-market precarity, contemporary workers—especially those in the media and creative industries—are increasingly called upon to brand themselves. As universities become progressively more market-driven, academics are experiencing a parallel pressure to engage in self-promotional practices. Academia.edu, a paper-sharing social network that has been informally dubbed “Facebook for academics,” has grown rapidly by adopting many of the conventions of popular social-media sites. This paper argues that the widespread uptake of Academia.edu both reflects and amplifies the self-branding imperatives that many academics experience. Drawing on the Academia.edu’s corporate history, design decisions, and marketing communications, we analyze two overlapping facets of Academia.edu: (1) the site’s business model; (2) its social affordances. We contend that the company, like mainstream social networks, harnesses the content and immaterial labor of users under the guise of “sharing.” In addition, the site’s fixation on analytics reinforces a culture of incessant self-monitoring, one already encouraged by university policies to measure quantifiable impact. We conclude by identifying the stakes for academic life, when entrepreneurial and self-promotional demands brush up against the university's knowledge-making ideals

Policing “Fake” femininity:Authenticity, accountability, and influencer antifandom

Although social media influencers enjoy a coveted status position in the popular imagination, their requisite career visibility opens them up to intensified public scrutiny and—more pointedly—networked hate and harassment. Key repositories of such critique are influencer “hateblogs”—forums for anti-fandom often dismissed as frivolous gossip or, alternatively, denigrated as conduits for cyberbullying and misogyny. This article draws upon an analysis of a women-dominated community of anti-fans, Get Off My Internets (GOMIBLOG), to show instead how influencer hateblogs are discursive sites of gendered authenticity policing. Findings reveal that GOMI participants wage patterned accusations of duplicity across three domains where women influencers seemingly “have it all”: career, relationships, and appearance. But while antifans’ policing of “fake” femininity may purport to dismantle the artifice of social media self-enterprise, such expressions fail to advance progressive gender politics, as they target individual-level—rather than structural—inequities

Contemplating library instruction: Integrating contemplative practices in a mid-sized academic library.

In recent years there has been growing interest in the integration of contemplative practices into higher education, but little has been published regarding contemplative practices or contemplative pedagogies in academic libraries. Nor have explicit links been made to critical librarianship (critlib), particularly regarding the stress associated with the profession and the “resilience narrative” of “doing more with less”. In this paper, we review the literature and describe our experiences introducing a variety of contemplative elements into our library instruction program, most recently in the virtual environment. Building on the three levels of “intervention” modeled by Barbezat and Bush (2014) to include librarians, and incorporating critlib theory, we describe the contemplative practices we have used to alleviate librarian, student, and faculty stress and burnout, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic

Turning Missteps into Stepping Stones: Personal and Professional Growth as an Early Career Academic Librarian

This panel discussion will focus on the challenges and failures we have experienced as new and semi-new academic librarians. The all too familiar trend in libraries has been to do more with less: requests for library services have increased yet our budgets, time, and supplies have all decreased. While institutions have devised creative ways to adapt to new difficulties, including adopting new staffing models, the situation remains the same: we have been hired to do one job but inevitably end up doing much more. How did we as new librarians deal with systemic issues? How has it impacted our professional development (or lack thereof)? What did we learn or feel we failed at while coming into our own in this field? Our discussion will focus on shifts in working patterns, professional development (and the privilege that comes with being able to participate), the impact of institutional culture on “library work,” and proposals for success and change from the failures we have experienced. We also acknowledge that this is a panel of predominantly white, female-identified persons, and so our conversations are deeply rooted in systems of privilege. We are not speaking to the experiences of every librarian (nor should we aim to try), and we will also signal-boost counterspaces existing within our profession. This panel discussion will not be a venting session, but rather it is our hope to refocus the conversation to our experiences in the field and some possible solutions. Finally, we will consider how we have maintained professional direction and focus while allowing our career experiences to shape and inform us

Evolutionary comparisons of chelonid alphaherpesvirus 5 (ChHV5) genomes from fibropapillomatosis-afflicted green (chelonia mydas), Ooive ridley (lepidochelys olivacea) and kemp’s ridley (lepidochelys kempii) sea turtles

peer-reviewedThe spreading global sea turtle fibropapillomatosis (FP) epizootic is threatening some of Earth’s ancient reptiles, adding to the plethora of threats faced by these keystone species. Understanding this neoplastic disease and its likely aetiological pathogen, chelonid alphaherpesvirus 5 (ChHV5), is crucial to understand how the disease impacts sea turtle populations and species and the future trajectory of disease incidence. We generated 20 ChHV5 genomes, from three sea turtle species, to better understand the viral variant diversity and gene evolution of this oncogenic virus. We revealed previously underappreciated genetic diversity within this virus (with an average of 2035 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), 1.54% of the ChHV5 genome) and identified genes under the strongest evolutionary pressure. Furthermore, we investigated the phylogeny of ChHV5 at both genome and gene level, confirming the propensity of the virus to be interspecific, with related variants able to infect multiple sea turtle species. Finally, we revealed unexpected intra-host diversity, with up to 0.15% of the viral genome varying between ChHV5 genomes isolated from different tumours concurrently arising within the same individual. These findings offer important insights into ChHV5 biology and provide genomic resources for this oncogenic viru

A Pilot Phase II Study of Digoxin in Patients with Recurrent Prostate Cancer as Evident by Rising PSA

Background: Digoxin was found to inhibit prostate cancer (PCa) growth via the inhibition of HIF-1α synthesis in a mouse model. We hypothesized that a therapeutic dose of digoxin could inhibit human PCa growth and disease progression. Methods: An open label, single arm pilot study was performed. Patients (pts) with non-metastatic, biochemically relapsed PCa with prostate specific antigen doubling time (PSADT) of 3 -24 months and no hormonal therapy within the past 6 months were enrolled. All pts had testosterone 50 ng/dL at baseline. Digoxin was taken daily with dose titration to achieve a target therapeutic level (0.8 – 2 ng/ml); patients had routine follow-up including cardiac monitoring with 12-lead electrocardiograms (ECGs) and digoxin levels. The primary endpoint was the proportion of pts at 6 months post-treatment with a PSADT 200% from the baseline. HIF-1α downstream molecule vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) was measured in plasma.Results: Sixteen pts were enrolled and 14 pts finished the planned 6 months of treatment. Twenty percent (3/15) of the pts had PSA decrease 25% from baseline with a medium duration of 14 months. At 6 months, 5 of 13 (38%) pts had PSADT 200% of the baseline PSADT and were continued on study for an additional 24 weeks of treatment. Two patients had durable PSA response for more than 1 year. Digoxin was well tolerated with possible relation of one grade 3 back pain. No patients had evidence of digoxin toxicity. The digoxin dose was lowered in 2 patients for significant ECGs changes (sinus bradycardia and QT prolongation), and there were probable digoxin-related ECG changes in 3 patients. Plasma VEGF was detected in 4 (25%) patients. Conclusions: Digoxin was well tolerated and showed a prolongation of PSDAT in 38% of the patients. However, there was no significant difference comparing that of similar patients on placebo from historical data. Digoxin at the dose used in this study may have limited benefit for patients with biochemically relapsed prostate cancer