Académie Hérétique: Call for Instructors
Gods&Radicals Press: Académie Hérétique was launched in May of 2018 as part of our dedication to offering our readers accessible, informative, and affordable education on Pagan and anti-capitalist topics. Since our founding we’ve offered five installments of two courses for over 140 participants around the world, and we’re currently seeking new relationships with instructors for new courses.
The types of courses Académie Hérétique is looking to offer:
We’re particularly interested in the following broad areas:
Pagan, animist, or indigenous spirituality, including introductions to the cosmologies, cultural histories, and anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist ways of being.
Introductions to anti-capitalist political theory and writers (queer theory, anarchism, post-colonialism, indigenous resistance, Marxism, etc.)
Practical skills, such as herbalism, self-care, community-building, crafting
Esoteric skills, such as divination, ancestor- and spirit-work, magical theory.
Other topics are absolutely possible! You can see our current course offerings here.
What qualifications are required for instructors with Académie Hérétique?
Académie Hérétique is founded upon the idea that knowledge should not be locked up in ivory towers, and the communities are strongest when people teach each other.
Our basic rule of thumb is that our instructors should “teach what they know.” Intimate relationship to the topic of the course through life experience is essential (and more important to us than academic qualifications). We decide each course on a case-by-case basis, and if we are unsure of the suitability of an instructor for a course, we will request community references or input from people we know are very familiar with the topic.
How Académie Hérétique works:
Participants in our courses are provided print and video course material and discuss what they’ve learned weekly with other participants and the instructor over a Discord server. Courses are between 4 to 6 weeks and are designed to require a commitment of 4-6 hours weekly from participants, including study time and discussion.
The role of the instructor:
Our instructors design their own courses, with help available from Gods&Radicals Press towards this end. They also create their own video and text material (coursebooks, weekly instructional videos, etc) and host a weekly conversation via text chat on our Discord server. Weekly time commitment from instructors is typically between 4 to 8 hours.
How an instructor is compensated:
Gods&Radicals Press pays the instructor 75% of all enrollment fees collected for the course (half on the first day of the course, the other half on the last day of the course). Enrollment fees vary, but as a rule we find participants are most willing to enroll in courses with fees equal to $10 per week of instruction. An instructor for a five-week course with 25 participants can usually expect a minimum compensation of $900 US.
The other 25% of enrollment fees are retained by Gods&Radicals Press to support our overall publishing and educational work
How Gods&Radicals Press supports the instructor:
Besides giving feedback on the overall course design, we also offer help with editing course videos and text, as well as formatting any course material for the instructor. In addition, we help administer the discussion server and offer technical support for participants so the instructor can focus on teaching. And we offer guidance for instructors new to teaching and help with any problems that might arise with participants.
We also provide other administrative tasks, including collecting enrollment fees and disbursing them to the instructor, sending course material to participants, creating a participant roster for the course instructor, and help with any accessibility accommodations that may be required from participants or the instructor.
Other things to note:
Course creation and design is initially time-intensive, but the material can be used in successive courses by the instructor with Académie Hérétique or elsewhere. The instructor maintains ownership of all material created for the course (videos, texts, etc.).
We also ask each instructor to agree to respect each of our participants equally, regardless of their background or identity, and to affirm an anti-racist stance in all interactions.
And we ask each instructor to consent to Gods&Radicals Press offering 4 enrollment spots of each course as “pay what you can” slots to those in need.
Interested in becoming an instructor with Gods&Radicals Press: Académie Hérétique?
Great! Please send us a letter of interest to distro@abeautifulresistance.com.
In that letter, please tell us the following:
Your name
The subject of the course you’d like to instruct.
Previous experience and relationship with the subject.
Any previous instruction experience you may already have.
A link to any material you may have previously written about this subject, if any.
Please allow us up to one week to reply to your query.
Resist beautifully!
Gods&Radicals Press