Week 5: The University Under Neoliberalism
Who are we being trained to be — and who do we want to be?
“Neoliberalism attacks democratic values at the level of the subject, transforming citizens into entrepreneurs of themselves.”— Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos
Session Map
Brown, Identity Statements, and the Close of Movement IReading Guide
Brown, Undoing the Demos · Zone Books 2015- Introduction — pp. 7–21 (~15 pp.) — Brown’s core claim and method
- Chapter 1 ‘Undoing Democracy’ — pp. 23–62 (~40 pp.) — the theory
- Chapter 6 ‘Educating Human Capital’ — pp. 175–222 (~47 pp.) — the application; most directly relevant to your situation
- Homo politicus / homo oeconomicus — pp. 83–99
- Human capital as self-investment — pp. 32–36
- The entrepreneurialized subject — pp. 37–45 and pp. 175–195
Find one moment in Brown where you feel implicated — where her argument lands on you personally, not just on an abstraction. Write an honest annotation beginning: “I feel implicated because ___”
And: your Scholarly Identity Statement is due before class today.
Homo politicus vs. homo oeconomicus — The political citizen capable of collective self-governance vs. the economic subject optimizing their human capital investment. Brown’s argument: neoliberalism remakes subjectivity by replacing the first with the second.
- Martha Nussbaum, Not For Profit
- Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Generous Thinking
Guiding Questions
Seminar · 0:30–1:45Activity: Identity Statement Swap & Respond
2:00–3:00 · 60 minutes total · Milestone 1 Workshop- Written responses (default) — complete the three tasks in writing before speaking
- Verbal only — share responses in conversation without writing, if preferred
- Post to Moodle — if in-person sharing feels like a barrier, post written response to Moodle by end of day
Cohort Synthesis — Close of Movement I
Full Group · 3:00–3:30What keeps showing up across the statements? What do we seem to share? What do we seem most uncertain about? What do we seem most sure of — and is that sureness earned or inherited?
By end of today each student should be able to name a shared vocabulary (Giroux, Benjamin, Mbembe, Brown — as tools, not names), a scholarly identity in writing however provisional, and one question they carry into candidacy work.
Milestone 1 — Full Details
Scholarly Identity Statement · 20% of final grade · Due before class, Week 5In approximately 500 words: Who are you as a scholar? What do you care about, what animates your research, and why does it matter? Where did your intellectual questions come from, and what do you want your work to do in the world?
This is not a CV summary. It is a statement of intellectual purpose, written from conviction, not for institutional legibility.
Reads like you wrote it — specific, embodied, personal. A stranger could not have written this.
You articulate clearly why your research matters — not only to your field but beyond it.
You trace where your questions came from — intellectually, experientially, or both.
The statement argues and synthesizes — it does not list credentials or topics.
- Google Drive — M1 subfolder at CRDM790_Submissions.html
- Moodle upload (PDF, Word, or plain text)
- Email to kkcole2@ncsu.edu
- Hard copy before class begins
Looking Ahead — Movement II Begins
- Silvia Federici, Caliban and the Witch (Autonomedia 2004/2014)
- Introduction — pp. 7–20
- Chapter 2 ‘The Accumulation of Labor and the Degradation of Women’ — pp. 75–131
- Find one place in Federici that speaks to your field specifically. Connect her argument to a dynamic you recognize in the fields you’re inheriting.
- W6 Federici — whose labor built your field?
- W7 Fisher / Derrida — what haunts your field?
- W8 ◆ Milestone 2: Draft Exam List due
- W9 Committee as intellectual community
- W10 ◆ Milestone 3: Committee Confirmation due