This episode examines the unprecedented attacks on universities under the Trump administration. Why do these assaults go beyond culture-war battles over the humanities and diversity to target the very foundations of scholarship and scientific research? And how are internal pressures – ranging from monetization and vocationalism to the retreat from dissent – weakening universities from within? Tune in to hear why defending the autonomy of higher education is inseparable from defending democracy itself.
Guest featured on this episode:
Arjun Appadurai is a Professor Emeritus of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University and Max Weber Global Professor at the Bard Graduate Center. A renowned cultural anthropologist, Arjun taught for many years at the University of Chicago, where he was Dean of Humanities as well. He’s one of the co-founders of the Journal “Public Culture” and stepped down only last year as its editor. His most important books include the “Social Life of Things”, “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy”, “Fear of Small Numbers”, “The Future is Cultural Fact”and “Banking on Words: The Failure of Language in the Age of Derivative Finance”. More recently, Arjun has been writing in the media on the crisis of democracy in general and the crisis of university autonomy in the United States in particular.
