Bonus: Education, Fascism, and Abolition: A conversation with George Ciccariello Maher

Rustbelt Abolition Radio

In this bonus episode, we speak with Dr. George Ciccariello-Maher, Associate Professor of Politics and Global Studies at Drexel University. Placed on forced leave by Drexel, he is among a growing number of academics subjected to retaliation for their critiques of white supremacy and openly fascist organizing. Ciccariello-Maher shows us how this university-centered backlash must be situated within the broader resurgence of fascism and white nationalism, which, in turn, cannot be understood apart from the deep structures of white supremacy, colonialism, and heteropatriarchy from which fascism emerges. He also sheds light on the false hope of educational reform within prisons, and how we ought to look instead to the forms of insurgent intellectuality abolitionists are creating both inside and outside prison walls. Our conversation gestures to the possibility for a renewed anti-racist, anti-fascist resistance, both on university campuses and beyond them.