Christopher Newfield is a professor in the English Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He received his PhD in American literature from Cornell University in 1988, and his central interests include: American culture after 1830, with particular attention to fiction since 1940; race; sexuality; affect; crime; California; and corporate culture. Professor Newfield is currently at work on two projects: The Empowerment Wars, which explores the literature, management theory, and everyday life of cubicle dwellers in corporate America; and Starting Up, Starting Over, an eyewitness account of the underside of the "New Economy" in Southern California. He is the author of Unmaking the Public University: The 40-Year Assault on the Middle Class (Harvard UP, 2008) and other books, and runs the Remaking the University blog.
CONTRIBUTOR ARTICLES
Suboptimal by Design: On Laura T. Hamilton and Kelly Nielsen’s “Broke: The Racial Consequences of Underfunding Public Universities”
“Broke” exposes the University of California system as a textbook example of structural racism....
A Socialist Alternative to Human Capital Theory?
"The Death of Human Capital?" shows how to overcome the neoliberal capture and monetizing of education....
Higher Ed on Autopilot
A new book projects a bleak future for US higher education....
Remaking the University: Metrics Noir
A review of three trenchant critiques of the culture of metrics....
What Is New About the New American University?
Will Michael Crow’s “New American University” help re-democratize the US or continue a trend of universities ratifying social inequality and wind up on a dust heap of halfway measures?...
Is College Still Worth It?
“Our failing colleges” got the A-side listing. The B-side, “our failing pragmatism: how a market focus hurt college learning” — never got played....
The Counterreformation in Higher Education
The public has a right to know what politicians and business leaders are really doing to their higher education systems, why they are doing it, and how to respond....
