This edited collection critically engages with a range of contemporary issues in the aftermath of the North Atlantic financial crisis that began in 2007. From challenging the erosion of academic authority to the myth that parliamentary democracy is not worth engaging with, it addresses three interrelated questions facing young people today: how to reclaim our universities, how to revitalise our democracy and how to recast politics in the 21st century.
This book emphasises the crucial importance of generational experience as a wellspring for progressive social change. For it is the young generations who have come of age in a world marred by crises that are at the forefront of challenging the status quo.
With insight into new social movements and protests in the UK, Canada, Greece and Ukraine, this stimulating collection of works will be invaluable for those teaching, studying and campaigning for alternatives. It will also be of relevance to scholars in social movement studies, the sociology and anthropology of economic life, the sociology of education, social and political theory, and political sociology.
1. Introduction; Torsten Geelan, Marcos Gonz?lez Hernando, and Peter William Walsh
2. Consecrating the Elite: Culturally Embedding the Financial Market in the City of London; Alex Simpson
Section 1: Reclaiming Universities
3. The Never-Ending Crisis in British Higher Education; Mike Finn
4. The Coming Crisis of Academic Authority; Eric Royal Lybeck
5. Consuming Education; Alice Pearson
Section 2: Revitalising Democracy
6. Local Maidan Across Ukraine: Democratic Aspirations in the Revolution of Dignity; Olga Zelinska
7. Opportunity in Crisis: Alternative Media and Subaltls.