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Hosted by the University of Illinois-Chicago United Faculty, a roundtable discussion about confronting the challenges facing higher education labor organizing. Topics included education technology, faculty autonomy, power mapping, board composition, lobbying state legislators, artificial intelligence, surveillance and data-mining, Ponzi austerity, and more.
Cast (in order of appearance): Jeff Kessler, Matt Seybold, Anna Kornbluh, Dominique Baker, Peter Coviello, Nassar Mufti, Jeff Edwards
Date Recorded: December 4, 2025
Music: Danny Weiss Quartet
Featured Guests
Dominique Baker is Associate Professor of Education & Public Policy with a joint appointment in the College of Education & Human Development and the Joseph R. Biden, Jr. School of Public Policy & Administration at the University of Delaware. She has published extensively on intersections of race, political economy, and education policy.
Anna Kornbluh is Professor of English at University of Illinois, Chicago and the author of Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late Capitalism (Verso, 2024) and a member the national coordinating committee of Higher Ed Labor United.
Matt Seybold is Associate Professor of American Literature & Mark Twain Studies at Elmira College, as well as resident scholar at the Center For Mark Twain Studies and executive producer of The American Vandal Podcast.
Episode Bibliography
Dominique Baker, “Censorship Arrives On Campus” Inside Higher Ed (January 13, 2026)
Dominique Baker et al, “Race Below The Fold: The Absence of Race in The New Media’s Coverage of Student Loans” Educational Evaluation & Policy Analysis (April 23, 2025)
Dominique Baker, “The US Department of Education is Far Behind On Producing Key Statistics” Brookings Institution (June 25, 2025)
Dominique Baker et al, “Expanding The Student Persistence Puzzle to Minority Serving Institutions: The Residential Historically Black College & University Context” Journal of College Student Retention (February 2021)
Dominique Baker, “A Case Study of Undergraduate Debt, Repayment Plans, & Postbaccalaureate Decision-Making Among Black Students at HBCUs” Journal of Student Financial Aid (June 2019)
Jodi Dean, Capital’s Grave: Neofeudalism & The New Class Struggle (Verso, 2025)
Eric Hayot & Matt Seybold, “The ‘Crisis In The Humanities’ Is Over. That’s Not A Good Thing.” Chronicle of Higher Education (December 29, 2025)
Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late Capitalism (Verso, 2024)
Anna Kornbluh, “Academe’s Coronavirus Shock Doctrine” Chronicle of Higher Education (March 12, 2020)
Annie McClanahan & Louise McCune, “Ed-Tech” in University Keywords (Johns Hopkins UP, 2025)
Isabel McMullen, “Portraying Governance: Demographic Misalignment in University Board Representation” EdWorkingPapers (June 2025)
Matt Seybold, “Jason Wingard’s EdTech Griftopia” Los Angeles Review of Books (February 23, 2023)
Matt Seybold, “The Ellisons Are Beta-Testing Big Brother” The American Vandal (October 10, 2025)
Matt Seybold, “Mamdani Win Could Be The First Step Towards Seizing The Means of Knowledge Production” The American Vandal (November 5, 2025)
Matt Seybold, “Gordon Gee’s Draw Check Scheme” The American Vandal (August 13, 2025)
Matt Seybold et al, “Ponzi Austerity in The Age of Cultural Abundance” The American Vandal Podcast (August 21, 2023)
Matt Seybold et al, “What is Technofeudalism?” The American Vandal (September 9, 2025)
Matt Seybold et al, “HBCUs & The Philanthrocapitalist Swindle” The American Vandal (February 4, 2025)
Michael Sisak & Larry Neumeister, “Charlie Javice Convicted of Defrauding JPMorgan During $175 Million Sale of Financial Aid Startup” Associated Press (March 28, 2025)
Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism (Melville House, 2024)
Yanis Varoufakis, Adults In The Room (Farrar, Strauss, & Giroux, 2017)
Yanis Varoufakis, The Global Minotaur: America, The True Origins of the Financial Crisis, & The Future of The World Economy (Zed Books, 2011)
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