Class Struggle in the Academy

Class Struggle in the Academy brings together nearly fifty years of Barbara Foley’s Marxist writing, locating both theoretical controversies and campus activism in the shifting historical pressures and constraints of global capital. Spanning her career as an activist, academic, and key participant in debates about the ideological function of the academic disciplines, this book comprises three sections that stake out different historical phases in the deep structure of global economics and politics – through the Cold War, neoliberal triumphalism, and the decline of empire in the 21st century – to reassess the concept of class to anchor politics and ideology in the deep historical structures from which they arise. Across essays, interviews, and reviews, as well as previously unpublished work, Foley brings a critical, Marxist lens to the culture wars, the controversies of Western Marxism, and intersectionality and the Black Lives Matter movement, as class is used as a vital analytical frame to understand higher education, academic work, and educational praxis. Energized by Foley’s many years of personal involvement in antiracist, antiwar, and academic labor activism, this highly readable book is of great interest to anyone seeking to understand – and resist – the current assault on higher education in the United States.