Influencer intellectuals, a quick summary
In my newfound condition as a part-time bureaucrat, I have dropped the ball on some of my academic projects. I’ve carved out a little bit of time in between grant applications, emails, and paperwork to write about a topic that I find critical for understanding the politics of knowledge today: the emergence of the influencer […]
The Strength of Weak Bullies
What explains the rapid spread of similar strategies against student protestors across American campuses? Over the past few days, I’ve been thinking about this issue—as many of us have—with constant puzzlement. While national political life might seem to be echoing times past thus explaining at least some of the reaction of university presidents, these are […]
Thoughts on the academy and elite disconnection
(These are some very quick thoughts—apologies for typos and disconnected arguments). The recent public relations failures of elite universities—most notably, Harvard—seem deeply paradoxical. Here we have multi-billion-dollar organizations, heavy with pedigree and rife with all types of connections, folding to a handful of online radicals whose only instruments are the volume of their digital voice […]
Writing Like an Algorithm
In a recent post on BSky, Kieran Healy reminded us of the very practical realities of academics colliding with point-and-click large language models. Published in Surfaces and Interfaces, a paper starts with the tell-tale signs of an AI-generated text: “Certainly, here is a possible introduction for your topic”. While more evidence is needed to state […]
It’s not me. It’s you.
How should we confront attacks to higher education? This question is eminently tricky. Part of the complexity has to do with power: for many in academia, taking a position is simply a luxury they cannot afford. Another part is practical: who are we to confront, anyway? Much has been written about how neoliberalism has taken […]
The Sorkin-is-a-Terrible-Journalist Affair
As universities are under attack by activist boards and unfriendly legislatures, as they face increasing political pressures to align their teaching and research with the agendas of conservative politicians, and as even Presidents of flagship systems in ostensibly liberal states call for “viewpoint neutrality”, Andrew Ross Sorkin and his colleagues at the New York Times […]
The Problem of (Management) Knowledge in Higher Education
The problem of (management) knowledge in higher education is distressingly complicated but, like most complicated things, is one that requires urgent attention. How should we run universities? How should we plan their academic programs? Reward efforts of their staff and faculty? Work with organized labor? Anticipate catastrophes? Plan the design and deployment of information systems? […]
Science, Interrupted*
If there is a lesson to learn from the whirlwind of our times, it must be that the world we’ve built, the one we assume provides sturdy grounds to our steps and thoughts, is but a sandcastle surrounded by waves. Fragility envelops us, sand disguised as concrete, our heartfelt certainty of a better future rapidly […]
Austere Thoughts
Apologies for the quick post. Types in between meetings… A key strategy in the discursive array known as neoliberalism is individualizing complex, collective social problems to forestall actual solutions. “If you are poor, it must be because you don’t work hard enough”. “If you are stressed, it must be because you lack mindfulness”. “If you […]
For a General Strike
As we go into the fourth week of a systemwide strike of academic workers at the University of California, a solution to this crisis seems increasingly unlikely. While postdoctoral workers have reached a tentative agreement on a revised contract which provides for more stability and higher levels of compensation, students, the union, and the University […]
Una ética neoliberal
Me llegó hoy un hilo interesante. En él, Violeta Vázquez-Rojas, conocida columnista y profesora de El Colegio de México, y Nicolás Medina Mora, editor de Nexos, discutieron una reconfiguración importante del discurso obradorista contemporáneo. Ante críticas de que López Obrador ha controlado la narrativa sin ofrecer nada sustantivo, Vázquez-Rojas nos presenta otra interpretación. Más allá […]
On the strike
On November 14, 2022, the United Automobile Workers union, representing more than 48,000 graduate teaching and research assistants, graders, readers, and postdoctoral workers at the University of California, started what Dissent Magazine calls the “largest strike in the history of American higher education”. Supported by an overwhelming vote for a strike authorization—voted for by over […]