Thorstein Veblen's The Higher Learning in America at 100 (MLA 2018)
Thorstein Veblen's 1918 The Higher Learning in America: A Memorandum on the Conduct of Universities by Business Men presented one of the earliest anti-corporate critiques of university-industry relations. This panel will offer readings of his classic study in light of the changes in American universities over the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. What can we learn from Veblen's critique? Does his argument still hold up 100 years later, and, if so, how might we use it as a resource in our own struggles against austerity budgeting, labor casualization, and corporatization in our institutions?