On Thursday, February 13, the UMass Amherst History Department and partners resume the 2024-25 Feinberg Series. Organized around the theme “What Are Universities For? Struggles for the Soul of Higher Education,” this yearlong series brings together students, scholars, and community organizers to trace the historical roots of the political, economic, and ethical crises in higher education. The fall semester’s five events were attended by more than a thousand people and the recordings have been viewed more than 2,500 times.
The series' organizers explain that one of the founding premises of the Feinberg Series is that history helps make sense of current political struggles. “Higher education is widely regarded as essential to a flourishing democracy,” they write. “But today, the university is in crisis: public funding has plummeted with political leaders threatening to decimate it to catastrophic levels; student debt is in the trillions; relationships between campuses and communities remain fraught; and challenges to academic freedom, critical thought, diversity, inclusion, and the right to political protest abound. The very existence of higher education is now under threat.”
Events explore the roots of these crises and ask: What are the university’s core commitments, and whose interests do they serve? How can we deepen our understanding of the origins, manifestations, and broad-reaching impacts of the crises facing U.S. universities today? What are the most promising remedies now being pursued?
The series opens its spring-semester offerings with From Land Grab to Native Sovereignty, an expansive dialogue on the historical and present-day relationships of U.S. universities to Indigenous peoples (February 13, 4pm).
A two-part event exploring student debt and the crisis of global capitalism follows, and includes a screening of You Are Not a Loan (February 24, 6pm) and a panel on The Rise and Fall of Student Debt with the film’s director Astra Taylor and South African activist and academic Leigh-Ann Naidoo.
In April, the series presents a student-curated exhibit on 1980s Anti-imperialist Student Activism at UMass Amherst (opening April 3, 12pm and on display April 3–30 at the UMass Bromery Center for the Arts). To mark the exhibit’s opening, the UMass Alliance for Community Transformation will host participatory workshops with student and local organizers, in their annual Plug In (April 3, 4pm).
The finale is the 2025 James Baldwin Lecture, The Meaning of Honesty in Academe. Co-presented with the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies, the in-person lecture will be delivered by Steven Salaita of the American University in Cairo (April 16, 6pm).
The Feinberg Family Distinguished Lecture Series is offered every other academic year by the UMass Amherst History Department thanks to the generosity of Kenneth R. Feinberg ’67 and associates. Each iteration of the series focuses on a “big issue” of clear and compelling concern, grounding it in historical context. The 2024-25 series is presented in collaboration with more than two dozen community and university partners, including numerous UMass and Five College academic departments, programs, and initiatives, as well as the Commonwealth Honors College and the UMass Amherst Graduate School and Colleges of Humanities and Fine Arts; Social and Behavioral Sciences; and Education.
All events are free and open to the public. Register for events on the series website: www.umass.edu/feinberg
Contact: feinberg@history.umass.edu