Description:
Mixing deep research and personal narrative, MAGAcademy reveals how decades of neoliberalism transformed universities into tools of surveillance-now weaponized by the Trump administration to create a state-sanctioned academy.
Brief description: Nolan Higdon is a political analyst, author, host of The Disinfo Detox Podcast, lecturer at Merrill College and the Education Department at University of California, Santa Cruz, and Project Censored Judge. Higdon's popular Substack includes the bi-weekly Gaslight Gazette, which chronicles important and well-researched examples of disinformation, character assassination, and censorship in the United States. Higdon's areas of concentration include critical AI literacy, podcasting, digital culture, news media history & propaganda, and critical media literacy. All of Higdon's work is available at Substack (https: //nolanhigdon.substack.com/). He is the author of The Anatomy of Fake News: A Critical News Lit-eracy Education (2020); Let's Agree to Disagree: A Critical Thinking Guide to Communication, Conflict Management, and Critical Media Literacy (2022); The Media And Me: A Guide To Critical Media Literacy For Young People (2022); and Surveillance Education: Navigating the conspicuous absence of privacy in schools (Routledge). Higdon is a founding member of the Critical Media Literacy Conference of the Americas. Higdon is a regular source of expertise for CBS, NBC, The New York Times, and The San Francisco Chronicle.
Review Quotes:
"Higdon weaves together personal experiences and decades of scholarship into a narrative that is sharp, brave, and, at times, thrilling" - Caroline Luce, University of California, Los Angeles
"Higdon's MAGAcademy is a must read for anyone concerned with the future of education and critical scholarship not to mention democracy itself." - Mickey Huff, Ithaca College
"Higdon moves beyond culture wars and moral panics to explain the neoliberal university's institutional failings. Higdon's book should be required reading for professors, students, and anyone who cares about building a democratic future." - Brian Dolber, California State University, San Marcos
"With clarity and elegance Nolan Higdon explains how an uneducated authoritarian President came to wield such great power over our institutions of higher learning." - Robin Andersen, Fordham University
"MAGAcademy does not include a call to merely reject Trumpism to restore the status quo. Instead it offers concrete proposals.'" - Katie Rodger, President of the University Council-American Federation of Teachers (UC-AFT)
"Higdon illustrates how the modern corporate university that treats students as customers and faculty as customer service representatives is unable to push back against the often-exaggerated criticism coming from the right." - Bill Yousman, Sacred Heart University
"Higdon argues that the alignment of fascist politics and academic corporatism is the logical endpoint of systems that neoliberal administrators built from the 1970s to the present." - Nicholas L. Baham III, California State University, East Bay
This book is highly recommended for anyone passionate about higher education and may offer a way for conservatives and liberals to find common ground." - Jan-Martijn Meij, Florida Gulf Coast University