The SHADA project investigates far-right “Shadow Academies” in the United States, that produce alternative research and teaching based on starkly conservative worldviews in order to challenge universities as the societal hubs of knowledge production. The research considers both institutions that are accredited within the educational system that nonetheless brand themselves as alternatives to public universities, as well as grassroots initiatives that look to cultivate far-right intellectual culture through the circulation of magazines and the promotion of thought-leaders from within their milieus. The project conceives Shadow Academies as counterrevolutionary cultural systems that far-right activists use in order to affect an illiberal turn on a deep cultural level in modern civil society. The project's goal is to trace the alternative practices of knowledge production found behind the recurring assaults on science and education by the far-right in the United States today.

2026

2030