“Say more?” Refusal,resonance,and the feminist ear in academic review

Abstract

In this arts-based inquiry, we explore how feminist ways of being can shape and reshape the practice of academic review. Drawing on experiences of being reviewed, we story moments of discomfort where we were pushed to “say more” or offer more of ourselves (e.g. about our identities, femininity, and trauma) by academic peers in response to sharing embodied or reflexive work. We focus on key moments when we balked, felt hesitance and/or declined these review requests to generatively consider how academic environments of consumption can cross boundaries and demand disclosure(s). Drawing inspiration from Ahmed's “feminist ear”—a mode of listening through subtext, signaling, and silence—we invite academics engaging with personal, embodied works to rethink review norms that rely on “interrogation.” We surface tensions within academic responsibilities to challenge peers, and suggest review approaches that tune feminist ears to responses that reverberate the source sounds authors choose to offer.