Non/Critical Scholarship, Laundering Reputation, and Modest, Wise Female Scholars 
Your Scholarly Digest 12th March, 2026

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Online Thumbnail Credits: National Gallery of Art Open Access Collection

Hi Scholar,

The following poem was written by Jessy Randall – who turns the lives and work of women scientists into art – about Flemmie Pansy Kittrell, one of the first African American women to earn a PhD in Home Economics: 

Howard University lured me,
promising a new Home Ec building,
but academia has slow metabolism.
I’ve always said prejudice is
having your thoughts too soon.
I spent my whole career fighting
that kind of snap judgment. So maybe
it’s all right I never worked in the
building they promised. They did,
eventually, build it, after I
retired and moved away.
If not for me there’d be no place
for the galoshes and the zippers.
The crayons, the dress-up bin,
the nap mats, the small chairs, and yes,
even books, lots and lots of picture books, and
the children themselves, and the mothers and fathers
and grandparents and teachers and families and all that love.

There is much in this poem that invites reflection, but two almost contradictory ideas in particular stood out to us. 

First is her remark that “academia has slow metabolism.” It is a wonderfully vivid way of describing the often extensive length of time it takes academic institutions to process the undercurrents of change. And yet, paradoxically, while academia moves slowly in some respects, it is also a place where snap judgments can happen quickly. Some ideas, people, or kinds of work are prematurely judged – sometimes even dismissed – before they have truly been understood.

We found ourselves particularly drawn to this contradiction. Perhaps because in many ways, the work we try to do through spaces like The Scholarly Letter emerges precisely from this tension – creating room for ideas and conversations that might otherwise be judged too quickly or recognised too slowly within academic institutions.

At times it can feel crippling, but it is also what pushes us forward each day, renewing our sense of purpose.

BRAIN FOOD

Non/Critical Beings: Criticality and Non-critical Experiences  

Recently, during a conversation with a fellow scholar in our community, I came across the idea of critical being for the first time, which I wanted to share with you. 

Personally, I found myself rather excited upon encountering the notion of critical being. My excitement was due in part because after years and years of understanding criticality principally in relation to thinking, I had been presented with the opportunity to engage with it through a different set of relations. 

Being intellectual, educated, and learned has come to be largely seen as some abstract matter entirely located in the intangible realm of thought. Or, as Barnett argues, it has become primarily understood and practiced through an epistemological lens that is useful only for assessing knowledge claims within specific contexts and for specific aims and purposes. The problem with this, however, is that such criticality remains defined by individualistic, hyper-rationalised, instrumental aims. Critical being challenges this, and in doing so, brings two relations back to the table of criticality. 

Scholar, Continue Reading?