Rate My Professor Ruth Barcan

Ruth Barcan is Honorary Associate Professor in the Department of Gender and Cultural Studies, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Sydney. Her research specializations include the cultural politics of the body and nudity, complementary and alternative medicine, academic life and labour, and environmental humanities. Barcan employs qualitative approaches such as interviews and participant observation. She authored Nudity: A Cultural Anatomy (Berg Publishers, 2004), which draws on popular culture, literature, philosophy, religion, and firsthand interviews to explore nudity's paradoxical status. Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Bodies, Therapies, Senses (Berg Publishers, 2011) investigates alternative therapies' integration into mainstream culture, based on her participation in CAM practices and interviews with users and practitioners. Academic Life and Labour in the New University: Hope and Other Choices (Ashgate, 2013) examines academics' experiences of vocation, work intensification, and career exits, informed by interviews and surveys with over 30 early-career academics who left the profession. She co-edited Critical Issues in Ecofeminism (NSW University Press, 1999) with Julie Maloney.

Barcan has a long career at the University of Sydney, progressing from lecturer to senior lecturer, associate professor, and now honorary associate professor. Before that, she was at the University of Western Sydney. Her key journal publications encompass "Birds as buddies: the politics of sentimentality in the Birds in backyards (Australia) Facebook site" (Continuum, 2023), "Paying dearly for privilege: conceptions, experiences and temporalities of vocation in academic life" (Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 2018), "New Age artworks: portrait of a puzzle" (Culture and Religion, 2018, with Jay Johnston), "Aromatherapy Oils: Commodities, Materials, Essences" (Cultural Studies Review, 2014), and "In the raw: 'home-made' porn and reality genres" (2002). She contributes to public platforms like Times Higher Education and Sydney Review of Books, and is affiliated with the Sydney Environment Institute, providing insights on topics like ethics and multisensory ecology.