Series in Advanced Political Economy - Why Can't Our Universities Be Free? Higher Education, Financialisation and Workers' Struggle

About The Course

This online international seminar series is jointly organised by SOAS University of London, our KTP partner, the New School for Social Research in New York, and Forum for Real Economic Emancipation (FREE) in Tulsa.

The Series in Advanced Political Economy (SAPE) connects the academic discussions to the real-world power struggle and workers’ everyday lives. For each session, we will invite leading experts on the subject and analyse what’s been going on by identifying key challenges. Together with the audience, we want to think about how we can fight against the challenges and build a movement toward a more systematic change.

This session will be delivered as a hybrid event in New York, 7-9pm UK time.

This session will be chaired by Danielle Twiss and tutored by Micaela Suminski, Richard Wolff and Sanjay Reddy.

Micaela Suminski is the President of ACT-UAW Local 7902, the union for 15,000 higher education workers in New York City, including full-time non-tenure track faculty, adjunct faculty, graduate student workers, undergraduate resident assistants, and student health services employees across The New School, NYU, and New York Film Academy. Micaela got involved in her union as a graduate employee at NYU while she was earning a graduate degree in Critical Disaster Studies, focusing on post-disaster anarchist mutual aid networks. In her role as an executive officer of Local 7902, she is focused on defending workers at The New School from attempted mass layoffs and benefits cuts as well as defending workers at NYU against AI encroachments on their jobs in the face of the administration’s refusal to bargaining over AI-related job protections. Micaela is also a documentary filmmaker and proud bartender.

Richard D. Wolff is Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst where he taught economics from 1973 to 2008. He is currently a Visiting Professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University, New York City. Earlier he taught economics at Yale University (1967-1969) and at the City College of the City University of New York (1969-1973). In 1994, he was a Visiting Professor of Economics at the University of Paris (France), I (Sorbonne). Wolff was also regular lecturer at the Brecht Forum in New York City. Prof Wolff is the co-founder of Democracy at Work and host of their nationally syndicated show Economic Update.

Sanjay G. Reddy is Professor of Economics at The New School for Social Research. He is an Affiliated Faculty Member of the Politics Department of the New School for Social Research. He teaches development economics, microeconomics, philosophy and economics, and other subjects.