Deane E. Neubauer is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Hawaii, Manoa. Over the course of his career he has focused on a variety of political and policy areas including democratic theory, public policy, elections and various policy foci, including education, health, agriculture and communication.
We talk about the rapidly changing world driving change in higher education including climate change, AI and resurgent nationalism. The implications of these forces are far-reaching, from the challenges to old disciplines, massification and the notion of truth.
But before that we talk about growing up in Wisconsin, and accidentally stumbling in academia then sociology and political science. And then a cornucopia of topics encompassed by “the politics of everyday life”: alternative healthcare; globalisation; resurgent nationalism; interdisciplinarity; politics of resentment; and how we get real change. While change may come from an emergency (he points to Californian fires), we need, Deane says, to find a way to “overcome the forces of despair”.