From Unmaking to Reimagining Universities in the Neoliberal/Digital Conjuncture: A microseminar with Chris Newfield

Event Date: 

Tuesday, January 26, 2016 - 2:30pm to 4:30pm

Event Location: 

  • Simpson Center for the Humanities
  • University of Washington-Seattle
  • CMU 202
  • Seminar/Workshop

HUM 595B

This microseminar frames the January 2016 visit of Chris Newfield by investigating: 1) how education in the humanities is decisive in defining the purpose of public higher education, 2) how humanities research reciprocally helps to contextualize the political and economic history of the public university; and 3) how humanistic cultural theory can contribute to pressing social debates over the transformation of higher education amidst today’s conjuncture of digitalization and neoliberalization.

Students will attend Newfield’s lecture and seminar. They will prepare for these events by joining two additional seminars in the week beforehand, which will be focused on the following writings by Newfield: Unmaking the Public University“Humanities Creativity in the Age of Online,” and other recent blog post and essays by Newfield and colleagues on Remaking the Universityincluding his review “Is College Still Worth It?” Based on these examples and their experience of engaging with Newfield, students will write a blog entry of their own to be considered for publication on the Remaking the Universitywebsite.

Questions? Contact Matt Sparke, sparke@uw.edu.