grift, edtech, enshittification References and suggested readings: Justin Raden. October 23, 2025. Higher Ed’s Rush to Adopt AI is About So Much More Than AI. Defector. American Vandal podcast and SubstackMoira Weigel. “Palantir Goes to the Frankfurt School.” b2oMolly White [citation needed]Gil Durán. 2026. The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy. Simon & Schuster.Edward Zitron Where’s Your Ed At? Melinda Cooper. 2024. Counterrevolution: Extravagance and ...

References and suggested readings: Celene Reynolds. 2025. Unlawful Advances: How Feminists Transformed Title IX. Princeton University Press. “What colleges (don’t) do about sexual violence with Nicole Bedera.” American Campus Podcast. May 28, 2025.Susan Faludi. 2006. Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women. Crown.Juliet Hooker. 2025. Black Grief/White Grievance: The Politics of Loss. Princeton University Press.Celene Reynolds’ faculty pageSupport the show Browse the American ...

“The reasons that I have for wishing to go to Harvard are several. I feel that Harvard can give me a better background and a better liberal education than any other university. I have always wanted to go there, as I have felt that it is not just another college, but is a university with something definite to offer. Then too, I would like to go to the same college as my father. To be a "Harvard man" is an enviable distinction, and one that I sincerely hope I shall attain.” -John F. Kennedy, Ap...

Oh my! References and suggested readings: Naomi Oreskes. 2025. Science on a Mission: How Military Funding Shaped What We Do and Don’t Know about the Ocean. University of Chicago Press. Naomi Oreskes. 2021. Why Trust Science? Princeton University Press.Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway. 2011. Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Climate Change. Bloomsbury.Naomi Oreskes. 2025. The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loat...

References and suggested readings: Andy Hines, ed. 2025. University Keywords. Johns Hopkins University Press. Alyssa Battistoni. 2025. Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature. Princeton University Press.Emily Callaci. 2020. “On Acknowledgments.” American Historical Review 125 (1): 126–31.Justin Raden. October 23, 2025. Higher Ed's Rush To Adopt AI Is About So Much More Than AI. Defector.Bluesky @andyhines.bsky.social aydelotte.swarthmore.edu@AydelotteFoundation on Instagra...

As a student, she was a proud "Goldwater girl, right down to my cowgirl outfit and straw cowboy hat emblazoned with the slogan 'AuH20." -Hillary Clinton, Living History, 2003. References and suggested readings: Nicholas Buccola. 2025. One Man's Freedom: Goldwater, King, and the Struggle over an American Ideal. Princeton University Press. Hajar Yazdiha. 2023. The Struggle for the People’s King: How Politics Transforms the Memory of the Civil Rights Movement. Princeton University Press.Dan...

The money behind truth. References and suggested readings: Maribel Morey. 2021. White Philanthropy: Carnegie Corporation's An American Dilemma and the Making of a White World Order. University of North Carolina Press. miamisocialsciences.org virtual forumsGunnar Myrdal, American Dilemma volume IGunnar Myrdal, American Dilemma volume IIJohn Fabian Witt. 2025. The Radical Fund: How a Band of Visionaries and a Million Dollars Upended America. Simon & Schuster.William H. Tucker...

References and suggested readings: Brad Bolman. 2025. Lab Dog: What Global Science Owes American Beagles. University of Chicago Press. Benjamin Alberto Schultz-Figueroa. 2023. The Celluloid Specimen: Moving Image Research Into Animal Life. University of California Press. Gustave Flaubert. Madam Boverie.Bluesky @bolman.bsky.social Instagram @labdogbookEmail Brad at bbolman@tulane.edu Support the show Browse the American Campus bookshelf at https://bookshop.org/lists/america...

A lesson on dark money influence in campus culture wars References and suggested readings: Isaac Kamola. Spring 2025. Understanding the Evolving Culture-War Vernacular. Academe Magazine. Isaac Kamola. 2019. Making the World Global: U.S. Universities and the Production of the Global Imaginary. Duke University Press.Ralph Wilson and Isaac Kamola. 2021. Free Speech and Koch Money: Manufacturing a Campus Culture War. Pluto Press. Roderick A. Ferguson. 2017. We Demand: The University and...

From a student of Saul Bellow and Barack Obama. References and suggested readings: John K Wilson. August 2025. “100 Years Ago, the Scopes Monkey Trial Discovered Academic Freedom.” Chronicle of Higher Education.John K. Wilson. 1995. The Myth of Political Correctness: The Conservative Attack on Higher Education. Duke University Press.Fara Dabhoiwala. 2025. What Is Free Speech? The History of a Dangerous Idea. Belknap Press.John K. Wilson’s columns in Inside Higher EdJohn K. Wilson on TwitterSu...

On the rightwing origins of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. References and suggested readings: Mary Anne Franks. 2024. Fearless Speech: Breaking Free from the First Amendment. Bold Type Books. Mary Anne Franks. 2019. The Cult of the Constitution: Our Deadly Devotion to Guns and Free Speech. Stanford University Press.University of Chicago’s 1967 Kalven ReportLauren Lassabe Shepherd. March 19, 2025. Who's Side are College Administrators On? HNN.AAUP’s 2025 Statement on...

ft. Geronimo, both Roosevelt presidents, Franz Boas, and the phrenologists References and suggested readings: Rachel Morgan. 2024. Sins of the Shovel: Looting, Murder, and the Evolution of American Archaeology. University of Chicago Press. John Fowler. 2021. A Forest in the Clouds. Pegasus Books.Follow Rachel Morgan on Instagram at @adventures_in_archaeologySupport the show Browse the American Campus bookshelf at https://bookshop.org/lists/american-campus-podcast Get updates about the ...

On hedge funds, private equity, and the financialization of public colleges. References and suggested readings: The Coalition Against Campus Debt. 2024. Lend and Rule: Fighting the Financialization of Public Universities. Common Notions Press. Sofya Aptekar’s faculty pagesofyaaptekar.com Robin D. G. Kelley. 2022. Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination (20th anniversary edition). Beacon Press.Robin D. G. Kelley. Fall 2022. Twenty Years of Freedom Dreams. Boston Review.Support ...

How public universities gave rise to public media References and suggested readings: Josh Shepperd. 2023. Shadow of the New Deal: The Victory of Public Broadcasting. University of Illinois Press.Laura Garbes. 2025. Listeners Like Who: Exclusion and Resistance in the Public Radio Industry. Princeton University Press.Katherine Jewell. 2023. Live from the Underground: A History of College Radio. University of North Carolina.Josh Shepperd’s BlueSky and faculty pageSupport the show Browse the Amer...

Does your campus use B&N Education or Follett? References and suggested readings: Katya Schwenk. September 10, 2025. “How Wall Street Broke the College Bookstore.” LeverNews.com.Vincent Bevins. 2020. The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World. PublicAffairs.levernews.com Support the show Browse the American Campus bookshelf at https://bookshop.org/lists/american-campus-podcast Get updates about the show at patreon.com/am...

On blood money and “the moral costs of an elite education.” References and suggested readings: David S. Busch. 2025. Disciplining Democracy: How the Modern American University Transformed Student Activism. Cornell University Press. Ethan Schrum. 2019. The Instrumental University: Education in Service of the National Agenda after World War II. Cornell University Press.Julie A. Reuben. 1996. The Making of the Modern University: Intellectual Transformation and the Marginalization of Moralit...

Can US colleges be decolonized? References and suggested readings: Sandy Grande. 2018. “Refusing the University.” Free PDF.Sandy Grande. 2016. Red Pedagogy. Free PDF.ACP episodes on Indigeneity and the university with Sharon Stein and Eve L. EwingRobin D. G. Kelley. March 1, 2016. “Black Study, Black Struggle.” The Boston Review. “Board of Trustees agreement shows hope for UConn-Indigenous relations,” The Daily Campus, February 3, 2025.Support the show Browse the American Campus bookshel...

Brought to us, in part, by the race scientists References mentioned this episode: Henry Reichman. 2025. Understanding Academic Freedom, 2nd edition. Johns Hopkins University Press. J. McKeen Cattell. 1913. University Control.Joy Ann Williamson-Lott. 2018. Jim Crow Campus: Higher Education and the Struggle for a New Southern Social Order. Teachers College Press.Lauren Lassabe Shepherd. 2025. Whose Side are Administrators On? HNN.Russell Banks. 2007. Continental Drift. Ecco.AAUP’s Academe ...

And how to approach an acquisitions editor References: Association of University Presses and #AskUpSteven L. Herman. 2024. Behind the White House Curtain. Kent State University Press.Madeleine L'Engle. 1980. A Swiftly Tilting Planet.J. R. R. Tolkien. The Hobit.Robert M. Veatch and Lainie F. Ross. 2016. Defining Death: The Case for Choice. Georgetown University Press.Kent State UP on Instagram, Facebook, and BlueskySupport the show Browse the American Campus bookshelf at https://bookshop.org/l...

Tuskegee, Alabama, the center of modernity in the Black Global South References and suggested readings: Jarvis McInnis. 2025. Afterlives of the Plantation: Plotting Agrarian Futures in the Global Black South. Columbia. Columbia University Press. Zora Neale Hurston. Mules and Men.Zora Neale Herston. Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica.Jesmyn Ward. 2024. Let Us Descend.Brea Baker. 2024. Rooted: The American Legacy of Land Theft and the Modern Movement for Black Land Ownersh...