How Close did we Come to Teaching Jeffrey Epstein?
Imagine our surprise when Sean Jacobs and I learned that the outline for the New School class we taught on the politics of global football made it into the Epstein files!
What the hell, right? Of all the bizarre and tawdry entries in the Epstein files published the U.S. Department of Justice, someone noticed this:
We swear, ref, we didn’t touch him!
Seems that in his millions of emails, someone had mailed Epstein the course packet for the legendary New School graduate course Sean Jacobs and I taught on the Politics of Global Football. Of course, Epstein never took the course. What could have made the person who mailed him that interested in our teachings on the politics and economics of the global game? The only discernible connection with the game emerging in the Epstein files is a business connection with Chelsea co-owner Todd Boehly. But back then, of course, 2014, Chelsea was owned by the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, although it seems Epstein wanted to meet Abramovich seeing him as another oligarch worth knowing.
Epstein may have skipped the course despite it being brought to his attention, heaven knows why, but it was a course worth taking. Indeed, it’s roots are in this astounding panel hosted by Sean at the New School in 2010, ahead of that year’s World Cup being held in South Africa. I was privileged to have had the opportunity to share ideas with the ridiculously clever Teju Cole and the inspirational legend Binyavanga Wainaina. It’s a long session, packed full of goodness, I promise!
For a short bit of insight buried within form me, last weekend’s news that 800 million people worldwide had watched our beloved Reds succumb to Manchester City in a key English Premier League match (compared to a quarter of that amount watching the Superbowl) was a reminder of something we were onto 16 years ago — the consequences for the game and its cultural centrality of satellite TV feeds compressing time and shrinking geography.
Sadly, that course is no longer, having fallen victim to the austerity imposed on the neoliberal order in U.S. universities, even before the Trump assault. Knowledge for knowledge’s sake, or to arm the student to make sense of and change in the world? Nah mate, apparently insufficiently monetizable.
But its memory lingers in the various podcasts Sean and I have done together
— With the Makdissi Brothers on Palestine and football
— With the South African freedom fighter Arsenal fan Ronnie Kasrils
and many others.
And also, of course, in his excellent Eleven Named People project on Substack (where he occasionally raids my writing archive for tearjerkers like this!)
The course is gone, as Chavez might have said, por ahora. But we’ll find ways to keep sharing whatever crucial knowledge we have!