Defending Higher Education as a Public Good: The Role of Public Intellectuals in the Neoliberal University With Henry Giroux

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Within the last few years, the discourses of authoritarianism and the echoes of a fascist past have moved from the margins to the center of politics across the globe. Increasingly higher education has been implicated in this process by becoming less a practice for freedom and public good than a site largely driven by the imperatives of neoliberalism. This talk and panel challenge this reactionary mode of education and pedagogy and explore how education and critical pedagogy might provide the theoretical and practical grounds for rethinking the purpose of education, the nature of politics, and the roles of intellectuals. Discussants consider Giroux's paper and Freire's legacy in relation to policy, race, colonialism, and technology.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Paulo Freire, Critical Pedagogy, and Emancipation

Chair

• Sheila L. Macrine, University of Massachusetts - Dartmouth

Papers

• Defending Higher Education as a Public Good: The Role of Public Intellectuals in the Neoliberal University - Henry A. Giroux, McMaster University

• Response to Giroux on Freire's Legacy - Donaldo Macedo, University of Massachusetts - Boston

• Response to Giroux on Policy - Ourania Filippakou, Brunel University London

• Response to Giroux on Technology - Kenneth Saltman, University of Massachusetts - Dartmouth