Engage in Public Scholarship! A workshop with Dr. Alex Ketchum

Public scholarship—sharing research with audiences outside of academic settings—has become increasingly necessary to counter the rise of misinformation, fill gaps from cuts to traditional media, and increase the reach of important scholarship. Engaging in these efforts often comes with the risk of harassment and threats—especially for women, people of color, LGBTQ+ communities, and precariously employed workers. This workshop, based on Ketchum's book Engage in Public Scholarship provides constructive guidance on how to translate research into inclusive public outreach while ensuring that such efforts are safer and more accessible. The workshop will discuss practices and planning for a range of activities from in-person and online events, to publishing and working with the media, social media activity, blogging, podcasting, cartoons, and more! This workshop will both address the key challenges and benefits of feminist and accessible public scholarship and provide toolkits for doing this important work.

Bridging the workshop and reception, participants are welcome to share a project, event or other output inspired by their learning journey at SFU. Some SFU CERi Graduate Fellows (2023-2024) will give a short summary of their Creative Approaches to Community-Engaged Research handbook. If you would like to share at the event, please get in touch with us at sophie_ashton@sfu.ca.

The reception is an opportunity for SFU students and postdocs interested in knowledge mobilization, community-engaged research, and public engagement to mingle, share ideas, reconnect, and network across disciplines with refreshments.

Dr. Alex D. Ketchum is an Assistant Professor at the Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies of McGill University. She is the Director of the Just Feminist Tech and Scholarship Lab and the organizer of Disrupting Disruptions: The Feminist and Accessible Publishing, Communications, and Tech Speaker and Workshop Series. Ketchum's first peer-reviewed book, Engage in Public Scholarship!: A Guidebook on Feminist and Accessible Communication (Concordia University Press 2022), examines the power dynamics that impact who gets to create certain kinds of academic work and for whom these outputs are accessible.