Student Debt and the Crisis of Global Capitalism: A Film Screening and Panel Discussion

Source: UMass Department of History

The Feinberg Family Distinguished Lecture Series will present two events exploring the student debt crisis.  On Monday, February 24, the series will present a screening of the film You Are Not a Loan. The film can be viewed on campus or via Zoom. On Thursday March 6, the series will host a panel discussion on Zoom entitled “The Rise and Fall of Student Debt”.  Both events are free and open to all.  More information is available here and below.

You Are Not a Loan
The screening of the film You Are Not a Loan will be held in the UMass Student Union Black Box Theater at 6 p.m. on Monday February 24.  Registration is not required. The film can be streamed at any time here

About the Film
In February 2020, filmmaker and Debt Collective co-founder Astra Taylor assembled a group of activists and academics to discuss the crisis of higher education and next steps for the growing movement to cancel student debt and make college and university tuition-free. Released by The Intercept in January 2021, You Are Not a Loan is a record of that encounter.

Collectively, the U.S. public owes a total of $1.7 trillion in education debt. How did we get to this point? What would truly free college—meaning both without cost and aimed at liberation—be like? How have racism and capitalism sabotaged public education as we know it? What do we mean by the word “public”? Where is our power to change things?

Taylor writes, “You Are Not a Loan puts current events and the deepening crisis of higher education into a broader context. It explores past decisions that set us on our current path while pointing toward a utopian horizon we can still reach for—a horizon where education is decommodified and democratized, available to all who want to learn. Most importantly, it offers a reminder that we will only shift course if regular people organize and fight back.”

The Debt Collective is a debtors’ union fighting to cancel debts and to build a world where college is publicly funded, healthcare is universal and housing is guaranteed for all.

The Rise and Fall of Student Debt
A panel discussion on student dept is planned for Thrusday, March 6 at Noon on Zoom.  Register for the link here.

Rising tuition and skyrocketing student debt have fundamentally reshaped higher education in recent decades, with toxic effects on all of society, both in the U.S. and globally. Join filmmaker and Debt Collective co-founder Astra Taylor and South African academics and organizers Leigh-Ann Naidoo and Kelly Gillespie (moderator) for a conversation on student debt, the crisis of global capitalism, and global movements fighting to end debt and transform higher education. The conversation follows the screening of You Are Not a Loan, directed by Taylor and starring Naidoo, among other leading U.S. and international activists and academics.

The Panelists
Leigh-Ann Naidoo is an educationalist who works at the University of Cape Town, School of Education. After the sports boycott was ended, she represented South Africa at various international tournaments, finally competing in beach volleyball at the 2004 Athens Olympics, where she was one of a handful of out queer Olympians. She has worked inside and outside of the formal education system. She was involved in #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall struggles and formed part of the 2016 all-women international flotilla mission that attempted to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza. She is interested in knowledge production outside of the confines of the academic project and is working collectively to develop daily pedagogies that confront the violences that are the reality of the majority of people on the planet, to work toward some form of resistance and repair. She continues to be involved in reimagining the university as an institution with the potential to radically change society.

Astra Taylor is a writer, documentarian, and co-founder of the Debt Collective, a union of debtors. She is the author of numerous books including The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together As Things Fall Apart, Democracy May Not Exist But We’ll Miss It When It Is Gone, The People’s Platform (winner of an American Book Award), and Solidarity: The Past, Present, and Future of a World-Changing Idea (co-author). She is the director of What Is Democracy?, Zizek!, Examined Life, You Are Not a Loan, and other films. Her writing has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, n+I, the Baffler, and elsewhere.

Kelly Gillespie (University of Cape Town) is a political and legal anthropologist who writes and teaches about law and justice, urbanism, sexualities, race, and the praxis of social justice. Gillespie has been involved in work on the decolonization of the university in South Africa, supporting student movement activism and disciplinary and curriculum reconstruction. With Leigh-Ann Naidoo, Gillespie is co-author of several articles in critical university studies, including “Abolition Pedagogy: Force Fields of Critique” and “Between the Cold War and the Fire: The Student Movement, Anti-assimilation, and the Question of the Future in South Africa.” Gillespie also works beyond the university in popular education projects supporting a broad range of social justice formations.

About the Feinberg Series
The 2024-25 Feinberg Series explores the historical roots of present-day political, economic, and ethical crises in higher education. It is presented by the UMass Amherst Department of History in partnership with numerous co-sponsors. The Feinberg Family Distinguished Lecture Series is made possible thanks to the generosity of UMass Amherst history department alumnus Kenneth R. Feinberg ’67 and associates. 

Read the history department statement on the sponsorship of events.

Next Event in the Series
Exhibit: 1980’s Anti-imperialist Student Activism at UMass Amherst
Opening April 3, 2025
More information