Mini-Series: The Neoliberal Academy
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EP49: Unionversity: College Athletics and the Fight for Fair Pay (ft. Edwin Garret, Helena Worthen & Joe Berry)
College athletes are workers, and they deserve to get paid. They put their bodies and futures on the line for the profit of their schools, without seeing real compensation for their labour. However, things are changing. On this episode of Darts and Letters, we go downfield to look at university labour and the battle for union rights.Listen now -
EP46: School Scams (ft. Derek Robertson & Gavin Moodie)
Last year was a rough one for academia – inauspicious, to say the least. The Covid-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on students, universities lurching between open and closed, leaving students strained and uncertain about their futures, and stuck in Zoom classrooms. All of that is bad. But wait – there’s more! In this episode of Darts and Letters, we take two of the most frustrating aspects of the higher education world: endless culture wars around free speech and identity, and the continued corporatization of the curriculum.Listen now -
EP36: Koch Block My Campus (ft. James L. Turk & Jasmine Banks)
Right wing money in academia is pervasive and influential. Libertarian-minded billionaires like the Kochs and their partners have funded scholars and think tanks across the US, and similar things go on in Canada too. On this episode of Darts and Letters, we explore big money and its corrosive influence on academic freedom and academic integrity.Listen now -
EP32: Academic Disaster Capitalism (w/Gary Rhoades)
School’s back. Alongside the usual challenges of managing college and university life comes sorting out how to keep people on campus safe during the Covid-19 pandemic. On this episode of Darts and Letters, we speak with Gary Rhoades, professor at the College of Education at the University of Arizona and former general secretary of the American Association of University Professors about academic capitalism, rising resistance to it, and how the pandemic has changed the story. Or not.Listen now -
Summer Bonus EP: Decolonizing Marxism (w/Boaventura de Sousa Santos)
On this summer bonus episode of Darts and Letters, we speak with Boaventura de Sousa Santos, a global Marxist thinker, Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Coimbra (Portugal), and Distinguished Legal Scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He argues for a contemporary, decolonial Marxism that operates on a deeper conception of power and oppression that includes analyses of colonialism, gender, and race across borders.Listen now