Quite an interview with Henry Giroux (our colleague at The Global Center for Advanced Studies) about his new book _Neoliberalisms War on Higher Eduation_ . From the interview with Giroux:| Under neoliberalism, any public sphere that educates young people to be critical and engaged citizens is seen as dangerous to the established order. This is one of the reasons that the right hates the legacy of the 60s, because it reminds them of the power of students to question the established order and make power accountable while demanding that education function as a democratic public sphere. Moreover, education provides opportunities for those multiracial and working-class individuals previously unable to get a decent education. This is viewed as a threat to a largely white dominated public sphere. These are some of the reasons why education is being massively defunded while students are trapped into tuition increases that decrease the possibility of poor students from going to college, while forcing existing students into an intellectual and morally dead zone that robs them of their imagination and forces them to think about their lives and careers solely in terms of survival tactics - how to pay off their loans as quickly as possible in order to be free of debt. The current assault threatening higher education and the humanities in particular, cannot be understood outside of the crisis of disposability, public values, ethics, youth, and democracy itself. What is distinct about the current threat to higher education and the humanities in particular is the increasing pace of the corporatization and militarization of the university, the squelching of academic freedom, the rise of an ever-increasing contingent of part-time faculty, the use of violence to squelch peaceful student dissent, and the view that students are basically consumers and faculty providers of a saleable commodity such as a credential or a set of workplace skills. truth-out.org/opinion/item/23156-henry-a-giroux-neoliberalism-democracy-and-the-university-as-a-public-sphere
Posted on: Wed, 23 Apr 2014 01:21:33 +0000
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