The Double Crisis of the University and the Global Economy

The zero issue of the new transnational journal edu-factory critically interrogates the proposition that the present is a time of crisis. What are the connections between the global economic downturn and the ongoing transformations of the university? In mainstream analysis, the current economic situation is referred to as a global financial crisis, as if a distinction could be drawn between finance and the productive economy. The notion of crisis has also been long deployed to describe the changes to higher education under neoliberal conditions that seem to be mutating with the present economic instability. What are the mutual implications of these two senses of crisis? Does it make sense to speak of a double crisis of the university and the global economy? Is it possible to isolate the current predicament as pertaining only to economics as if it doesn’t extend into other spheres of human activity? How can we question the current use of the category of crisis, rethinking it to open spaces and times for new institutional forms and new kinds of social relations?

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