As scholars it is not uncommon for many of us to have our personal identities get caught up in our professional pursuits. While this phenomenon is not unique to academia, nor to the study of the visual arts in any specific way, it appears to be more pronounced among academics. Perhaps it is the hazing process of graduate school or personal connections to the material that first draw us into our studies, but in either case scholars of all ranks have observed remarkable overlap between their personal and professional senses of self. Recently, as the academic job market has shifted and contracted, many PhD candidates and graduates have had to come to terms with this phenomenon as they have left academia for rewarding careers in tangential fields. Others of us who work within the academy have confronted our ever-evolving personal and professional identities in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic,...
University of California Press