Taking Back the Automodern University: Postmodern Progressive Social Movements and the Academic Class System

Abstract

This chapter applies postmodern principles of social action to the particular example of contingent faculty fighting for economic and educational justice in the University of California system. Through this critical analysis, I hope to show how academic thinkers and activists can use critical theory to fight the negative effects of automodernity, while they engage in a concrete form of social change.¹ Part of this process entails the reclaiming of postmodernity and secular humanism through a careful attention to the ways contemporary social movements actually function. Also, in returning to Laclau’s notion of hegemony, I will provide a structural road map for social groups seeking to form coalitions to promote the impossible, but necessary, goals of justice, equality, and transparency.