Séan Richardson

On a recent episode of the Modernist Podcast, I asked “What does precarity mean to you?” My inquiry came in the wake of the strike action that swept the UK in the early months of 2018, as academics became embroiled in an all too familiar fight to protect their working conditions by halting alterations that would see sweeping changes to pensions. I have returned to this question many times since and realized how flawed it is, for precarity is not an epistemological issue, but an ontological one.

In the Spring of 2016, I received confirmation that I had been awarded funding to undertake doctoral study that coming October. Overwhelmed, I physically jumped for joy, promptly thumping my skull on the shelf that rested shortly above me. Usually, we bang our heads due to frustration brought about by inertia, but I think about this literal knock as a transitional moment, one which allowed me to cross the battle lines drawn by my desk, seceding from the administrative camp and joining the ranks of graduate school