A field guide to find or create work that aligns with your values
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Hustles for Humanists
Build a business with purpose
Erica Machulak, PhD
Foreword by Crystal Marie Moten, PhD
Illustrated by Sophia van Hees, PhD
Rutgers University Press - Forthcoming April 2025
About the Book
As a humanities professional, your skills are in demand. Despite the challenges of a competitive job market, the unique skill set that you possess is highly transferable to various industries and roles. Knowing how to position your creativity, knowledge and empathy is vital for achieving meaningful employment and professional growth.
Hustles for Humanists provides a detailed roadmap for humanities professionals who want to leverage their valuable skills to find or create meaningful work. Drawing from her experiences as an academic turned entrepreneur, Erica Machulak gives practical advice on how to connect with your core values, market yourself, build relationships with clients, and negotiate fair compensation.
This is an essential field guide for finding work that aligns with the core values of your humanities scholarship and practice. It demonstrates how the professional strengths of the humanities can be drawn upon to create fairer, more just and equitable entrepreneurial approaches—whether you’re launching a business, job hunting, or looking for inspiration. Hustles for Humanists helps you unlock the value of your humanities practice and explore exciting new pathways to achieving economic stability both within and beyond academia.
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Erica Machulak, PhD
Author
Erica Machulak (she/her), PhD, is the Founder and Lead Facilitator of Hikma, a social impact startup with a mission to mobilize scholarship for the public good through consulting, capacity building, and storytelling. Over the past two years, Hikma clients have secured $6M+ in research funding, informed new policies, and published their work in media outlets such as Forbes and the CBC.
As a writer, editor, and facilitator, Erica believes that the world needs to hear more from people who resist easy answers. Since completing her dissertation on Arabic influences in medieval English literature, Erica has written articles for Inside Higher Ed, Intellect Ltd, and Humanities, the magazine of the National Endowment for the Humanities. She holds degrees from the University of Pennsylvania (BA), the University of Oxford (MSt.), and the University of Notre Dame (PhD).
Headshot credit: Heidi Back
Crystal Marie Moten, PhD
Foreword Author
Crystal Marie Moten, PhD is a public historian, curator, and writer who focuses on the intersection of race, class, and gender to uncover the hidden histories of Black people in the Midwest. Moten holds degrees from Washington University in Saint Louise (BA) and the University of Wisconsin, Madison (MA/PhD). She is the author of the award-winning book, Continually Working: Black Women, Community Intellectualism and Economic Justice in Postwar Milwaukee.
Headshot credit: Maurice L. Bland
Sophia van Hees, PhD
Illustrator
Sophia van Hees is a multi-passionate creative with a background ranging from fine art to cognitive neuroscience. She takes an experimental approach to her business and design work, weaving together threads of ideas to discover new and unpredictable connections along the way. As owner of Brave Snail Designs, she also embraces fearless creativity mixed with slow and meaningful growth. Sophia holds a Bachelor of Speech Pathology and PhD from the University of Queensland, Australia.
Headshot credit: Heidi Back
