(via Jenny Stout, Co-Chair/Chair-Elect of VLACRL)
On Wednesday, July 19, from 10:00 to 11:00 AM CDT, the Virginia Libraries Section of the Association of College & Research Libraries (VLACRL) is hosting a presentation titled “Escaping Toxic Positivity: How Vocation and Resiliency Narratives Challenge Librarianship“. It will feature speakers Talia Nadir (Research and Instruction/Social Sciences Librarian at Macalester College) and Ginny Moran (Research & Instruction Librarian, Rare Books & Special Collections at Macalester College).
Here is a description of their presentation:
Building on Fobazi Ettarh’s premise of “vocational awe,” Miya Tokumitsu’s interrogation of the “do what you love” narrative, and Barbara Ehrenreich’s examination of positive psychology, our presentation will center on how these forces within librarianship manifest in our workplaces. In our research, we considered radical vocational critique to investigate expectations of labor and emotional regulation in our field. Our survey aimed to gauge the experiences of library workers in academic libraries in order to evaluate contemporary attitudes and values toward choosing academic library work. Following an overview of our research, we invite you to join a discussion surrounding issues of service vs servitude, the expectations for emotional modulation, the role of individual resiliency narratives at the expense of collective action, burnout, low morale, toxic positivity, and thoughts about critical management strategies as potential solutions. We hope to spark a conversation on how job class, educational attainment, gender, race, and other social identities impact individual abilities to critically examine workplace practices.
Please register for the event here.
Please e-mail Jenny Stout (jastout@vcu.edu), Co-Chair/Chair-Elect of VLACRL, with any questions.