Nicole Bauer is assistant professor of European history at the University of Tulsa, and the Associate Director of the Oklahoma Center for the Humanities.
This is an engaging account of various ways to cultivate joy, compassion and courage in academic life. Bauer shows us how we can thrive as teachers, scholars and colleagues, while acknowledging the structural and systemic challenges of academe. She encourages us to use our agency to see through our self-imprisoning stories. Drawing on perspectives from Buddhism, Stoicism, existentialism, and indigenous wisdom, she makes a compelling case for using a variety of tools to transcend the perfectionism, impostor syndrome, time pressure and comparisons that can keep us stuck in anxiety, shame and stress. This is a wise and inspiring book.