Feminist Responses to the Neoliberalization of the University: From Surviving to Thriving

(Hardback)

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The contributors in this collection argue neoliberal discourses are prevalent in higher education and seek to undermine, commodify, and co-opt the radical, transformative work that many gender and womens studies departments, programs, and centers are doing. The contributors discuss the ways in which they respond to these challenges in and out of the classrooms: from mentorship and activism to active allyship, experimental pedagogies, and applying feminist theory. The contributors propose a new wave of feminist consciousness raising, new tools for engaged teaching and activism, new visions of self-care models, slow research and scholarship, unionization, and new advice for leaving tenured or tenure-track positions that serves as doorways to new understandings of productivity and creativity.

Reviews

With intersectional feminist ferocity, this powerful, impassioned collection asks what a university would look like if it actually cared about the marginalized, while it unsparingly displays higher education's race to the bottom by a thousand neoliberal cuts. Foregrounding WOC, LGBTQ+, first-generation, working-class, Jewish, and indigenous voices and experiences, the chapters unflinchingly confront what it means to attempt social justice research and pedagogy amidst literally ceaseless budget "crises". Seamlessly weaving the sublimity of our longings for a more just world with a clear-eyed stare at the ridiculous corporate logic that has swamped university functions, this collection is essential reading for students, faculty, administrators, and anybody who cares about higher education. -- Karen Kelsky, Founder and CEO of The Professor Is In

Author Bio

Abby Palko is director of the Maxine Platzer Lynn Women's Center at the University of Virginia.

Sonalini Sapra is engaged teaching specialist in the Center for Principled Problem Solving at Guilford College and adjunct assistant professor of political science.

Jamie Wagman is associate professor and chair of gender and womens studies and history at Saint Marys College.