ABSTRACT
What does it mean to be a feminist researcher and teacher in times of neoliberal academic and capitalist acceleration? An initial answer might be to note that neoliberalism is “haunting” academia in multiple and mysterious ways that materialize knowledge into marketable commodities (Readings 1997). Athena Athanasiou defines this situation as a global phenomenon that sustains higher education via “a conception of knowledge as property, commodity, and a measurable commercial asset that needs to be immediately available to the managerial agendas of global business elites” (Athanasiou in: Butler and Athanasiou 2013, p 188). Even though more and more attempts to subvert this model are coming from many different areas of knowledge production, a certain state of crisis is denounced by academics, students, and mass media in general. We understand this crisis as one which concerns work security and labour conditions, the precariousness of both students and a large portion of academics, and a crisis of knowledge production in its being reduced to a commercial good available for the market. On the other hand, following Athena Athanasiou, we see the rhetoric of crisis, often used by politicians and authorities, as a powerful tool to design and remodel the university in a neoliberal fashion, renouncing the state’s responsibility to support the university as it is no longer seen as a common good.
