Late academe justice, extinction, and the university Jeffrey R. Di Leo

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Di Leo, Jeffrey R., author.

Series:

Palgrave studies on global policy and critical futures in education 2662-2254

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Education, Higher--Philosophy.

Education, Higher.

Education, Higher--Political aspects.

Academic freedom.

higher education.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Cham Palgrave Macmillan [2026]

Summary:

"This book is a major accomplishment, one of the most compelling manuscripts on the politics and philosophy of higher education. Di Leo writes with energy, conviction, and intellectual courage, combining rigor with accessibility in prose that is elegant, persuasive, and clear. The project is impeccably organized, theoretically rich, and empirically grounded in the lived realities of academic life. It represents a significant and original contribution to the literature on neoliberalism, the university, and the fate of critical thought in the twenty-first century." -Henry A. Giroux, Professor and Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest in English and Cultural Studies, McMaster University, Canada "Late Academe proves one more time that Jeffrey R. Di Leo is one of our most informed and astute commentators on the American university. At a time when many of us stand idle by in the face of the far-right assault on higher education and acquiesce to neoliberal methods of 'assessment,' Di Leo is laying out a radical program for rebuilding a truly forward-looking and free-inquiry-fostering US academic system." -Christian Moraru, Class of 1949 Distinguished Professor in the Humanities, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, USA This book offers a critical diagnosis of higher education's decline under neoliberal capitalism. Drawing on political philosophy, critical theory, and educational thought, the book explores how market-driven metrics have eroded academic freedom, tenure, and the humanities, while undermining the democratic values of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Di Leo interrogates the ideological and structural failures of contemporary academe and proposes acts of resistance as a path forward. This book reframes the university as a site of struggle between democratic education and neoliberal obsolescence. This book is essential reading for scholars of higher education, critical pedagogy, and political theory seeking to understand the twilight of academic life and imagine what might follow its collapse. Jeffrey R. Di Leo is Professor of English and Philosophy at Texas A&M University, Victoria, USA. He is the author and editor of over forty books on higher education, literary theory, and neoliberalism, including Dark Academe (2024), Catastrophe and Higher Education (2020), and Corporate Humanities in Higher Education (2014)

Contents:

1. Introduction

2. When Education Fails

3. A System of Nonknowledge

4. Metrics and Value

5. No More Experts

6. Plagiarism for All

7. The Twilight of Tenure

8. Blame it on the Jargon

9. Writing and Extinction

10. Anger and Justice

11. Acts of Resistance

12. Coda

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index

Online resource; title from PDF title page (SpringerLink, viewed May 29, 2026)

Other Format:

Print version Di Leo, Jeffrey R. Late Academe

Print version :

ISBN:

9783032213693

303221369X

OCLC:

1593301378

Publisher Number:

CIPO000367588

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license