Between Race And Reason: Violence, Intellectual Responsibility, And The University To Come
by Susan Searls Giroux /
2010 / English / PDF
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Inquiring into the future of the university, Susan Giroux finds a
paradox at the heart of higher education in the post-civil rights
era. Although we think of "post-civil rights" as representing a
colorblind or race transcendent triumphalism in national
political discourse, Giroux argues that our present is shaped by
persistent "raceless" racism at home and permanent civilizational
war abroad. She sees the university as a primary battleground in
this ongoing struggle. As the heir to Enlightenment ideals of
civic education, the university should be the institution for the
production of an informed and reflective democratic citizenry
responsible to and for the civic health of the polity, a
privileged site committed to free and equal exchange in the
interests of peaceful and democratic coexistence. And yet, says
Giroux, historically and currently the university has failed and
continues to fail in this role.
Inquiring into the future of the university, Susan Giroux finds a
paradox at the heart of higher education in the post-civil rights
era. Although we think of "post-civil rights" as representing a
colorblind or race transcendent triumphalism in national
political discourse, Giroux argues that our present is shaped by
persistent "raceless" racism at home and permanent civilizational
war abroad. She sees the university as a primary battleground in
this ongoing struggle. As the heir to Enlightenment ideals of
civic education, the university should be the institution for the
production of an informed and reflective democratic citizenry
responsible to and for the civic health of the polity, a
privileged site committed to free and equal exchange in the
interests of peaceful and democratic coexistence. And yet, says
Giroux, historically and currently the university has failed and
continues to fail in this role.Between Race and Reason
Between Race and Reason engages the work of diverse
intellectuals—Friedrich Nietzsche, W. E. B. Du Bois, Michel
Foucault, Martin Luther King, Jr., Jacques Derrida and others—who
challenge the university's past and present collusion with racism
and violence. The book complements recent work done on the
politics of higher education that has examined the consequences
of university corporatization, militarization, and bureaucratic
rationalization by focusing on the ways in which these elements
of a broader neoliberal project are also racially prompted and
promoted. At the same time, it undertakes to imagine how the
university can be reconceived as a uniquely privileged site for
critique in the interests of today's urgent imperatives for peace
and justice.
engages the work of diverse
intellectuals—Friedrich Nietzsche, W. E. B. Du Bois, Michel
Foucault, Martin Luther King, Jr., Jacques Derrida and others—who
challenge the university's past and present collusion with racism
and violence. The book complements recent work done on the
politics of higher education that has examined the consequences
of university corporatization, militarization, and bureaucratic
rationalization by focusing on the ways in which these elements
of a broader neoliberal project are also racially prompted and
promoted. At the same time, it undertakes to imagine how the
university can be reconceived as a uniquely privileged site for
critique in the interests of today's urgent imperatives for peace
and justice.
