Full Description
Through a fusion of autoethnography and critical theory, this bold, cutting-edge volume examines how South African universities, instead of fulfilling their post-apartheid promise of democratic transformation, have become sites of bureaucratic control, epistemic erasure, and neoliberal authoritarianism.
Drawing on African critical theorists such as Frantz Fanon, Achille Mbembe, and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, the book interrogates the coloniality of knowledge, the corporate instrumentalization of higher education, and the role of AI-driven surveillance in policing thought. It critically engages with movements like #FeesMustFall, positing that universities have become complicit in state repression. Amidst this backdrop, the book envisions an alternative - one where the university is reclaimed as a site of insurgent knowledge, radical democracy, and epistemic justice.
Positioned as both a theoretical intervention and a real-world call to action, the book encourages students, scholars, and educators to reclaim higher education as a practice of freedom, resistance, and liberation.
Contents
1. Entering the University: Hope, Contradictions, and Early Signs of Authoritarianism 2. The Slow Death of Academic Freedom 3. Revisiting the #FeesMustFall Movement: Resistance and Repression 4. Fanon and the Coloniality of South African Universities 5. Achille Mbembe and the Necropolitics of the University 6. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o and the Limits of Decolonisation in South Africa 7. Surveillance, Control, and the Technological Capture of Higher Education 8. Academic Metrics, AI, and the Corporate University 9. Higher Education as a Site of Struggle: A New Vision 10. A Radical Manifesto for Democratic Higher Education
