William Saas

William Saas is a Senior Professor of Practice in the Department of Communication and the Digital Media Practices program. Dr. Saas is a scholar-advocate specializing in critical analysis of economic rhetoric and its circulation via social media and throughout the digital public sphere. He is cocreator, producer, and cohost of Money on the Left, a monthly podcast presented in partnership with Monthly Review Online that seeks to reclaim money’s public powers for imaginative intersectional politics. Professor Saas further serves as cofounder and codirector of the Money on the Left Editorial Collective (https://moneyontheleft.org), a platform for publishing digital work that explores the historical and contemporary overlap between cultural practice, public policy, and political economy. He is also a Research Scholar with the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity, an independent public policy think-tank dedicated to the promotion of interdisciplinary research in the service of improved quality of life for all members of society.

Research Fields

Rhetorical Studies; Media Studies & Media Production; Heterodox Economics

Selected Publications

Recent Episodes

Money on the Left, “Weimar Futurities with Engelbert Stockhammer”
https://mronline.org/2022/04/01/weimar-futurities-with-engelbert-stockhammer/

Money on the Left, “The ECASH Act with Rohan Grey”
https://mronline.org/2022/03/29/the-ecash-act-with-rohan-grey/

Academic

2020. “Performative Public Finance for Higher Education: Academic Labor and the Green New Deal.” Co-authored with Scott Ferguson. Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies 16, no.
4 (December), http://liminalities.net/16-4/finance.pdf. (Lead article).

2019. “Building Capacity with Money on the Left.” Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies 15, no. 3, http://liminalities.net/15-3/.

2018. “The Econo-Rhetorical Presidency and the U.S. Fiscal Situation.” Advances in the History of Rhetoric 21, no. 2 (Summer), 131-146.

2016. “Restive Peace: Body Bags, Casket Flags, and the Pathologization of Dissent.” Coauthored with Rachel Hall. Rhetoric & Public Affairs 19, no. 2 (Summer), 177-208. (Lead
article). 

Public Policy & Editorial

2022 (Forthcoming). “The Uni Currency Project: Democratic Finance for Public Higher Education after COVID-19.” Coauthored with Benjamin Wilson, Scott Ferguson, and Maxximilian Seijo, In Care, Climate, and Debt:, Benjamin Wilson, ed. (Palgrave).

2020, November 1. “What if Everyone on Campus Understood Money?: A Response to Chronicle of Higher Ed Columnist Allison Vaillancourt.” MROnline.org, https://mronline.org/2020/11/01/what-if-everyone-on-campus-understood-money-a-response-to-chronicle-of-higher-ed-columnist-allison-vaillancourt/.

2020, October 30. “Public Money and the Road to Revolutionary Recovery.” Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung: Solidarity Beyond the Crisis Blog, https://rosalux.nyc/public-money-revolutionary-recovery/.

2020, August. “The Uni Currency Project: Democratic Finance for Public Higher Education after COVID-19.” Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity, Working Paper 23 no. 128. Coauthored with Benjamin Wilson, Scott Ferguson, and Maxximilian Seijo, http://www.global-isp.org/wp-content/uploads/WP-128.pdf.