Author and educator Leigh Patel contemplates decolonizing higher ed.

On this week’s episode, academic and activist Leigh Patel discusses No Study Without Struggle: Confronting Settler Colonialism in Higher Education (Basic Books, July 20),“a lively, politically engaged jeremiad on issues of identity, multiculturalism, and efforts to redress enduring wrongs” (Kirkus).

Here’s a bit more from our review of No Study Without Struggle: “‘Settler colonialism is based on the logic of owning land,’ Patel writes, ‘and that there is never enough land to satisfy the landowners’ thirst’.…[P]rominent universities have not properly addressed persistent patterns of class- and race-based favoritism, to which Patel responds with justified, terse fury, reminding readers how many of these institutions were built by slaves. At the same time, the author celebrates a counternarrative of persistent patterns of protests and alternative learning modes by Indigenous people, people of color, and LGBTQ+ communities. ‘Learning has…never yielded fully to this settler project of colonization of the mind,’ Patel writes.”

Patel and host Megan Labrise discuss the definition of “settler colonialism”; the relationship of settler colonialism to higher education; Patel’s own relationship to higher education; how her mother influenced her ideas about learning; the work of historian Robin D.G. Kelley; the role of love in transforming systems of oppression; education activism; and much more.

Then editors Vicky Smith, Laurie Muchnick, and editorial assistant Johanna Zwirner join with their weekly reading recommendations.

Editors’ picks:

City of Illusion by Victoria Ying (Viking)

Wayward by Dana Spiotta (Knopf)

Second Place by Rachel Cusk (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Also mentioned in this episode:

City of Secrets by Victoria Ying (Viking)

Thanks to our advertisers this week:

Carta de Tita Bety para mi nieto Leo: Dichos que aprendí en México by Beatriz Ruiz Silva

What We Take for Truth: A Novel by Deborah Nedelman

Fully Booked is produced by Cabel Adkins Audio and Megan Labrise.