Conditionally Accepted: Navigating Higher Education from the Margins
Edited by Dr. Denise Desnise & Dr. Bertin M. Louis, Jr.
IA conversation w/ the editors — STREAMING NOW!!
Bertin M. Louis, Jr. PhD is Associate Professor of Anthropology and African American & Africana Studies (AAAS) at the University of Kentucky. He is the winner of the 2023 Sam Dubal Memorial Award for Anti-Colonialism and Racial Justice in Anthropology from the American Anthropological Association (AAA). Louis is also the winner of the 2023-2024 Wenner-Gren Fellowship in Anthropology and Black Experiences (School for Advanced Research).
Bertin served as President of the Association of Black Anthropologists (ABA – a section of the AAA [2021-2023]), is the current ABA Secretary/Treasurer (2023-2025), a past Editor of Inside Higher Ed’s Conditionally Accepted column, a regular contributor to Higher Ed Jobs, and a co-editor for the Truthout series called “Challenging the Corporate University.” Louis is also the co-author of the forthcoming Conditionally Accepted: Navigating Higher Education from the Margins (University of Texas Press, 2024).
Dr. Louis served as the inaugural director of undergraduate studies for AAAS (2019-2021) at the University of Kentucky and Vice Chair of the Africana Studies Program at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (2014-2019). Dr. Louis studies the growth of Protestant forms of Christianity among Haitians transnationally, which is featured in his New York University Press book, “My Soul is in Haiti: Protestantism in the Haitian Diaspora of the Bahamas (2015)” which was a Finalist for the 2015 Haitian Studies Association Book Prize in the Social Sciences. He also studies human rights, statelessness among Haitians in the Bahamas, anti-Haitianism, and antiracist social movements in the US South. Dr. Louis teaches courses in Black Studies and Cultural Anthropology, and he received his PhD in 2008 from the Department of Anthropology at Washington University in Saint Louis.
Dr. Louis is also the owner and founder of Navigating Higher Education (NHE), an award-winning academic consulting firm which offers higher education-related services and empowers its clients to find and secure academic positions.
Throughout his career, Bertin M. Louis Jr. challenges those who engage his work to stretch their moral, political, and ethical imagination beyond simplistic distinctions between “victims, perpetrators, and saviors” (cf. Makau Mutua) that often reside underneath mainstream narratives about social justice and human rights. With his work on evangelical Protestantism in the Haitian diaspora in the Bahamas and elsewhere, Dr. Louis has contributed greatly to understanding how religious movements articulate with political and economic trends such as the rise of neoliberalism, the emergence of racial-capitalist, and anti-Black political formations in the Caribbean in the wake of decolonization, and the failures of international organizations to guarantee the human rights of stateless people.
Denise! Denise! is a trans and non-binary empowerment coach and strategist. They first pursued a traditional academic career as a sociology and women, gender, and sexuality studies professor in hopes of making a difference in the world. Inevitably, they left higher education to become a more impactful non-binary and trans liberation activist. They launched their own coaching and consulting business in 2022 to pursue intersectional queer, trans, and intersex justice work full time. They live with their husband and two chonkers in Richmond, VA.
“I am a fat mixed-Black queer non-binary femme with disabilities.”
They are committed to business and activist practices that are intersectional, anti-racist, feminist, pro-LGBTQIA+, body positive, anti-ableist, anti-ageist, anti-classist, anti-xenophobic, anti-caste, and environmentally-conscious.
Visit to learn more about Denise Denise and their work –https://thehouseofdenise.com/
Hugo Yepez (they/he) is an associate producer for Insufferable Academics. They currently serve as a Regional Coordinator with the Foundation for California Community Colleges. He has years of experience in higher education and has been a leader in identifying and implementing strategies to manifest inclusive, equitable, just, and thriving communities. His community-centered approach to relationship building and cultivating connections has been essential in his work to push forward justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion. Hugo leverages his strong background in student services, diversity, equity, and inclusion, and community transformation approaches, equity-centered, student-centered practices, 2SLGBTQIA+ support, Latine support, DEI strategy and development; capacity building; evaluation; and coalition building to improve success pathways in education for all students.
They actively work towards creating equitable and mutually supportive opportunities that empower folx to transform the world around them through coalition building and action. During their free time, Hugo loves spending time with his chosen family, traveling, taking long walks with no destination, binge-watching shows, and curating spaces that center joy and community. Hugo serves as the Latinx Inclusion Chair for the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) Gender and Sexuality Knowledge Community (GSKC) and the Latinx/a/o Knowledge Community. They also serve as a Member-At-Large for the American College Personnel Association (ACPA) Latinx Network (LN). Hugo holds a Masters of Education in Postsecondary Administration and Student Affairs from the University of Southern California and a Bachelors of Arts in Psychology and Social Behavior from the University of California, Irvine.
RESOURCES
ACADEME BLOG The blog of Academe magazine
Invisible Labor
Denise discusses the exploitation of scholars of color in academe
Meet the New Editor of ‘Conditionally Accepted’
Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt introduces herself and shares her vision for the column going forward.
Pedagogies of Crossing: Meditations on Feminism, Sexual Politics, Memory, and the Sacred – M. Jacqui Alexander (2006)
Racism without Racists
Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America
by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021)
The Doctrine of Academic Freedom
Let’s give up on academic freedom in favor of justice By Sandra Y. L. Korn (The Harvard Crimson, 2014)
The Erosion of America
By Sarah Kendzior (Future Hindsight, 2021)
This special offer is brought to you by the team behind “Conditionally Accepted: Navigating Higher Education from the Margins” — USE DISCOUNT CODE UTXS24 for 30% off!
“Quisieron enterrarnos, pero no sabían que éramos semilla”
Facilitated by IA Associate Producer – Hugo Yepez (They/he)