With intersectional feminist ferocity, this powerful, impassioned collection asks what a university would look like if it actually cared about the marginalized, while it unsparingly displays higher education’s race to the bottom by a thousand neoliberal cuts. Foregrounding WOC, LGBTQ+, first-generation, working-class, Jewish, and indigenous voices and experiences, the chapters unflinchingly confront what it means to attempt social justice research and pedagogy amidst literally ceaseless budget ‘crises.’ Seamlessly weaving the sublimity of our longings for a more just world with a clear-eyed stare at the ridiculous corporate logic that has swamped university functions, this collection is essential reading for students, faculty, administrators, and anybody who cares about higher education.

Karen Kelsky, Founder and CEO of The Professor Is In

Using narratives of professional and personal experiences in academic settings, this book illuminates sites of creative resistance within the neoliberal academy. The contributors offer analyses that are simultaneously challenging, disheartening, and inspiring. They ask readers to consider how academic norms can limit inclusivity and broad participation; they also offer strategies for marginalized academics to reform or make a home within academic settings. These narratives show readers the significant costs to marginalized students, staff, and faculty when social purposes of higher education are replaced by market-driven ones. Read optimistically, however, they also point to the cracks in our institutions that might just someday allow light to shine through.

Rebecca Ropers, University of Minnesota