Barkham P.

Barnbaum B.

Becker C.

Brooke S.

Costa T.

Finley S.

Gómez y

Hamera J.

Holman Jones S

Madison D. S.

Mingé J. M.

Neilsen L.

Pelias R. J.

Richardson L.

Shauna M. MacDonald

Spry T.

Tracy S. J.

In this autoethnographic cartography, I argue for the need for alternative embodied maps for academic life. Using my experiences as a budding pharologist (someone who studies lighthouses), I bear witness to my cultural experience of academia through a collaged autoethnography of mapping and composing space. I bring together autoethnography, theories of cartography, as well as my experiences researching lighthouses as sites of public memory performance, to demonstrate that there is a need in the culture of academia for real discussions about anxiety and similar issues—among faculty and students—and that autoethnography, cartography, and pharology provide an entry into such a discussion. In fragmented sections designed to highlight the ways experiences intertwine, I move through four phases of feeling “blue”: the deep blue of confusing academic anxiety and depression; the search for a methodology to lead me to a brighter, more pleasant kind of blue; the research journey that moved me forward; and the “blue sky” blue it led me to. Through autoethnographic writing and stylistic experimentation, I map my experience of journeying through academic anxiety, providing an example of working toward alternative mappings, compositions, and visions of academic life.</jats:p

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Culture Studies 2194 Critical Methodologies

Composing an Autoethnographic Cartography of Blue: Becoming a Pharologist in and of the Academy

Composing an Autoethnographic Cartography of Blue: Becoming a Pharologist in and of the Academy

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