61 International Review of Qualitative Research, Volume 2, Number 1, May 2009, pp. 61–66. © 2009 International Institute for Qualitative Inquiry, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign All rights reserved. Ode to Academic Labor Lisa M. Tillmann Abstract is resistive poem calls for collective action to combat the en- croachment of corporate values into academic life. Best served hot. Capital is dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks. Karl Marx Ode to Academic Labor 1 I labor through rhythm and cadence to offer this rhyme of resistance, this ode to academic labor. I write of journal submission fees 2 payment for peer review I provide for free, a service I am told to complete in two to four weeks while my manuscript collects dust, a lonely eight months atop some editor’s desk. 3 I write of writing intellectual checks to charities like Taylor and Francis, donating gracefully, gratefully, rights to profit from,