Democracy, Capitalism, and the Ambivalence of Willa Cather’s Frontier Rhetorics: Uncertain Foundations of the U.S. Public University System

The author argues that, far from being a recent development, the corporatization of the university has been part of the often uneasy coexistence of democratic and capitalist interests throughout the history of the U.S. university system. She explores the relationship among higher education, democracy, and corporatization within Willa Cather’s O Pioneers!, My Ántonia, and The Professor’s House to demonstrate an early public recognition of this corporatization as well as the way it has been historically obfuscated.