Conclusion

This book has been inspired by E.O. Wright’s writings on real utopias. Beginning in the early 1990s, it was an endeavour which spans almost three decades. Real utopias are guided by the idea of alternative institutional arrangements that, grounded in the real potentials of humanity, serve societal betterment. What awaits the (public) university? The book has sought to explore the real utopian ‘constituents’ of the public university, with an eye on their possible renewal. Indeed, it is because the public university is intrinsically a real utopian interstitial institution, that it deserves redevelopment. The real utopia of this book is socio-ecological. Technology has a secondary, supporting role. At its broadest, a civilizational change is required to redevelop the public university. A paradigm of public investment is in other words required to give the institution the place it deserves in societies that like to think of themselves as knowledge societies. The closest approximation to the socio-ecological utopia proposed in this book is a radical Green New Deal. In lending its support for the Green New Deal, academia is both (un)timely and engaged.