Block Reference
- On Monday, November 16, the Unit for Criticism held the last of its Fall 2009 Author’s Roundtables on the first day of a historic strike for the University of Illinois and beyond. When we asked various student and faculty affiliates if they thought we should cancel the event, one student, John Claborn, replied that he thought that “the project of critical theory should continue unabated in the...
- Written by Okla Elliott (Comparative and World Literature)The Graduate Employee Organization strike so filled the air Monday night that the event began with an update from a representative, Michael Verderame, from the English department. Two of the panelists addressed the issue—Zsuzsa Gille dedicating her comments to the GEO...
- Vernacular Capitalists: A Response to Ritu BirlaWritten by Matt Hart (English)Author’s Note: The day after I delivered these remarks, the Graduate Employees Organization, IFT/AFT Local 6300, AFL-CIO (GEO), suspended strike action pending ratification of a new contract with the University of Illinois. In a major victory for academic labor, the GEO won concessions on all four of its key issues:...
- Written by Zsuzsa Gille (Sociology)Stages of Capital is an excellent book that I read from cover to cover. I learned so much from it and will no doubt refer to it a lot in my work on postsocialism. I am dedicating this response to my graduate students in two ways: a) I will make most of my comments about capitalism which so pervades our workplace and b) I will make an effort to help them...
- Respondent James H. Warren (History, Illinois) talks with Ritu Birla (History, Toronto).Written by James H. Warren (History)Several years ago in a social theory seminar, my colleagues and I were assigned Douglass C. North’s 1990 book Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance (Cambridge UP, 1990). Economic history, we...
- (These comments, slightly edited, were delivered in the public comment section of the University of Illinois Board of Trustees meeting, November 12, 2009, in Springfield). My name is Michael Verderame. I’m a Ph.D. candidate in English at the Urbana-Champaign campus. I’m also a graduate employee, working as assistant director of the professional writing program and a research assistant, and I’ve...
- The GEO’s last two rallies before the strike will be this Thursday at locations in Springfield and the Urbana campus. The first rally will be the Board of Trustees meeting in Springfield. The Board of Trustees ultimately signs off on the GEO contract, and they have new members (since the clout scandal resignations) who may be swayed to put...
- Written by Frank Donoghue (Professor of English at Ohio State University)Since you’ve had a chance to look at a couple of chapters from my book, The Last Professors, I thought I’d offer you the book’s backstory, and then connect that story to some more recent thoughts I’ve had about the present and future of academic labor. It’s fair to say that I would be a contented professor of eighteenth-...
- Written by John Claborn (English)Monday night’s (Oct. 26) author’s roundtable and lively discussion with Frank Donoghue proved sometimes bleak and less often hopeful, but consistently provocative. Donoghue began his talk by recounting two formative moments that set a professor of eighteenth-century British literature on the path...
- Written by David Morris (English)The following comments are informed by several positions I’ve occupied at UI. I’m a seventh year grad student in English. During my time here, I’ve taught seventeen courses and assisted for five more. I’ll be on the job market next year. I was heavily involved in negotiating the 2006 GEO-UI contract, and I’ve been sporadically involved in the GEO ever since,...
- The Neoliberal Arts Education: Some Points of Refusal Written by Antoinette Burton (History)Before I begin I want to remark on how many people have been in contact with me over email about this panel, sending viewing material and references of all kinds.The most common item I have received is segments of the “Save the University” forum staged at Berkeley before the September walkout. It can be...
- Written by Dianne Harris (IPRH & Landscape Architecture)I should state at the outset that I choose to view Professor Donoghue’s book as a sobering cautionary tale rather than as an account of a fait accompli. There are probably not many among us here tonight who would argue that corporate business models did not begin to hold sway in universities some time ago, and I think we all acknowledge...
