Academic Misfits
A Podcast For Academics Roller Skating on the Fine Edges of Academe
Welcome academic friend/fiend
My biggest asset is my community, especially the creative and impassioned people who push the boundaries. I have volunteered as a welfare consultant with The World Transformed, decolonized STEM for The Black Curriculum, partnered with trans-rights NGOs in South America, and I contribute my dance skills to an annual charity event. I will say academia never appreciated my public engagement work and knowledge mobilisation. What parts of you didn’t exactly fit in academia’s KPIs or metrics of esteem even though we all know it should have?
Go to Podcast / Check Out Academic Misfits – the book!
Podcast
Academia is pretty unforgiving of those who are different. This podcast explores those who don’t fit the academic mold, those who roller-skate on the fine edges but somehow still succeed… either in or out of the box.
Contact me
I’m looking for people who are still in academia or who have left and are striving to push back on the narrative of what “a good academic” is. Please consider being a guest! I love meeting new people!
If you want to tell me your story or if there is a story you’d like to hear on an episode, let me know.
About me
I’m Dr Luna Muñoz (formerly Centifanti) – your host! I thrived in the box until I didn’t! I left a permanent associate professor role (after a redundancy exercise that left me fighting by getting a mic and speaking out against injustices alongside the union). So after 14 years, I left and created Luna Leadership. I now volunteer when I want for not-for-profits, dance 4 hours in a day, and crochet to my heart’s content.
Academic Misfits – the book!
If you’re interested in reading a chapter I’ve written on my process of leaving academia through the metaphor of dance, grab the new Academic Misfits book here: https://www.routledge.com/Academic-Misfits-Questioned-Belongings-in-Higher-Education/Hoppe-Siegert-Temiz-Hasselgren-Seifan/p/book/9781032482217
Although one way “misfit” manifests is the consequence of being a square peg in a round hole with academia failing to include those of us who don’t fit, there are other ways to see it – maybe even empowering, especially when we team up with others who don’t fit the mean.
I love the idea that misfit can also be seen as an imperative, a noun — a duty especially now when DEIA and our very agency is threatened in many parts of the world.
My podcast, Academic Misfits (inspired by the punk-ness 
of the book), is a celebration of those misfits skating on the edge, breaking moulds that are stifling creativity, and busting through boxes that never should have been built around us 
There is a discount code below (25SMA1) available at Routledge . com until 30 April so please get your copy or share in your networks – with anyone you think might benefit from reading other people’s stories of not fitting into academia.
You’re not alone!
