Reflection: Hannah Kinney-Kobre Returns to OUP
Hannah Kinney-Kobre, BU Center for the Humanities Senior Staff Assistant emerita and College of Arts & Sciences 2020 graduate in English and Cinema and Media Studies, has accepted a position as an editorial intern at Oxford University Press in New York City. Despite graduating into the worst economy since the Great Depression, Kinney-Kobre’s exceptional academic and professional skills, as well as the relationships she developed during her summer 2019 BUCH Internship at OUP, spurred the press to invite her to return for a second summer.
Kinney-Kobre developed an interest in academic publishing during her time as an undergraduate at BU. She assumed for much of her life that she would become an academic, but as she learned more about the structure of the university—including the challenges of securing stable employment as an academic—she decided to pursue work in a different but related industry.
“From the outside, working in the publishing industry represents a ‘life of the mind’ career path similar to how people conceive of the academy” Kinney-Kobre said. “But publishing actually involves a significant amount of administrative work. Though this doesn’t make publishing distinct from the university, I appreciated that the industry tends to conceive of the work it does in much more practical terms.”
Kinney-Kobre will provide editorial support on the History and Religion team. Writing copy for book jackets, managing submissions for awards, promoting book reviews, and drafting new book announcements will be some of her core duties. Her new position marks a departure from the work she did last summer in the marketing department at OUP. This first job of her postgraduate life will enable Kinney-Kobre to expand her understanding of the publishing industry.
At OUP, Kinney-Kobre will draw on the aptitudes, interests, and commitments she developed while at BU, both inside and outside of the classroom. In addition to the analytical and writing skills she honed as a dual English-CIMS major, there are two contexts that were formative for Kinney-Kobre during her time at BU.
“I became really involved in organizing during my second and third years at BU; nothing changed me more than these experiences. I helped to organize a rally with the BU Graduate Workers Union in response to sexual harassment and abuse in academia, I started a BU chapter of Young Democratic Socialists, and I also did organizing work around prison abolition and the Donate Your Vote campaign in Massachusetts. Organizing developed my capacity to think critically about the world, as it is actually experienced,” said Kinney-Kobre, noting that this perspective is crucial to her work at OUP, given that the press’s publications are often concerned with some of the most significant social, historical, and political issues of our era and others.
Quipping that she was “not getting paid to say any of this,” Kinney-Kobre likewise emphasized the value of her time as a student staff member at BUCH. “I have become a competent administrator, and I was lucky enough to take the lead on planning events and initiatives,” such as inaugurating the Center’s Incarceration Film Series. “Working at the Center significantly increased my professional confidence,” she added.
In the future, Kinney-Kobre might apply to graduate school to continue her studies in literature and film, specifically in the areas of affect theory and gender studies, drawing on the work of scholars such as Sianne Ngai, Lauren Berlant, Kathleen Stewart, and Sara Ahmed.
No matter what Kinney-Kobre chooses to do, we know she will make a valuable difference in the lives of those around her.