Teaching as Labor in the Neoliberal University

Session Submission Type: Workshop

Description

The recent strike across University of California campuses included 48,000 academic workers and represented the largest academic strike in United States labor history. This event, along with the recent wave of academic labor actions beyond the UC, prompts us to consider teaching and pedagogy through the organization of labor in the neoliberal university. In this workshop, we will discuss the possibilities of considering teaching from a labor, rather than pedagogical, orientation. Drawing on several autoethnographies of teaching assistants as they learn to navigate the university’s labor structure as academics-in-training, we suggest an alternative dimension to talking about teaching that begins from a labor process perspective. Specific topics include lesson plans as labor games, arrhythmias in teaching and research, student support as care work, manager relations across teaching teams, and the role of silence in developing teaching labor. Attendees will expand their toolkit for analyzing their own teaching labor and the valuation of teaching within their institutions.

Sub Unit

• Workshops / Teaching Workshop

Session Organizer

• Margaret Ruth Eby, University of California-Berkeley

Leader

• Michael Burawoy, University of California-Berkeley

Presenters

• Thomas Gepts, University of California-Berkeley

• Justin Matthew Germain, University of California-Berkeley

• Elizabeth Emmott-Torres, University of California-Berkeley

• Natalie Pasquinelli, University of California-Berkeley