In, Against, and Beyond: A Marxist Critique for Higher Education in Crisis

ABSTRACT

This article introduces a general framework for the critique of the university in crisis that originates in the Marxist tradition. After indicating the limitations of current proposals regarding the source and shape of this crisis, the article emphasizes the dialectical matrix that lies behind the nexus of crisis and critique, which is responsible for closing and deactivating the contradictions emerging within it. To break this theoretical deadlock, we use the ‘in-against-beyond’ figure formulated on the grounds of Open Marxism. Referring this figure back to the project of Marx and Engels from The German Ideology allows us to explicate a program and research method for critical university studies, which relies on the integrity of three moments of critique: an inquiry into the experience of being within the university subsumed under capital; going against its rule and interrupting the processes of accumulation; and rendering visible what lies beyond the current form of the higher education in crisis.

KEYWORDS:

• Critical university studies
• Marx
• critique
• crisis

Acknowledgments

First and foremost, we would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for all their criticism and excellent feedback. Moreover, the paper has benefitted immensely from comments by Aline Courtois, Angela Dimitrakaki, Richard Hall, Piotr Juskowiak, Łukasz Moll, Anna Piekarska and Michał Pospiszyl. All the standard caveats apply.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. ‘STM is the leading global trade association for academic and professional publishers. It has over 150 members in 21 countries who each year collectively publish nearly 66% of all journal articles and tens of thousands of monographs and reference works.’ See https://www.stm-assoc.org.

2. The matter of this dispute and divergence of the perspectives that follow was made clear by Lebowitz (2005) in his critical review of Changing the World without Taking Power, where he indicated that Holloway’s proposal stands in complete contrast to Marx, as it assumes a unifing concept of ‘community of negative struggle’, thus rejecting the very idea of the development of subjects through their common struggle (2005, 230–231). This discrepancy can also be seen critically from Holloway’s (2009) perspective contained in his text on the negative and positive autonomisms.

3. Syllogism refers us directly to Hegel’s Logic, which, as has been shown, had a profound impact on Marx’s magnum opus and the method he employed (Smith 1988). In Hegelian terms, it is the syllogism which connects universality, particularity and individuality by establishing a set of mediations. Thus, different moments cannot be studied in isolation, but require a systemic approach. When applied to the logic of capital, the syllogistic framework forces us to think of capital not only in relational terms but also as forming a totality.

4. See. https://www.co-op.ac.uk/pages/category/co-operative-university.

5. See. https://socialsciencecentre.org.uk/.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Krystian Szadkowski

Krystian Szadkowski is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Philosophy and Researcher at the Centre for Public Policy Studies, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland.

Jakub Krzeski

Jakub Krzeski is PhD candidate at the Institute of Philosophy, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland.