Conference Title: A.W. Mellon Workshop on Immaterial Labor

Session/Panel: Immaterial Labor Workshop

Talk Title: Could We Build an Autonomous University?

This event is part of the ongoing A.W. Mellon Workshop on Immaterial Labor. WISCAPE is helping organize Professor Newfield's visit.

Professor Christopher Newfield, author of "Unmaking the Public University," will lead a workshop where he will discuss his proposal for a semi-autonomous restructuring of humanities and social sciences departments at large, public research universities.

In Professor Newfield’s conception, faculty, graduate students, and post-docs would commit to teach one course a year outside of their institutions. Over time, a more personalized form of higher education that builds its own infrastructure without a reliance on administrators would evolve. For more information, watch him speak about his proposal here.

The workshop is meant to be participatory and inclusive. Ideas, suggestions, cautions, and questions about Professor Newfield’s thought experiment and similar autonomous education projects will be encouraged. Attendees may, but are not required to, bring curriculum and reading suggestions, syllabi ideas, funding and resource options, and ideas for alternative higher education projects