Teaching politically: policy, pedagogy and the new European university

This article follows the development of this new cartography, as it moved in a ‘revolutionary caravan’ across Europe and North Africa in 2011. The paper provides an account of a group that lies at the heart of this movement, the Edu-factory Collective, based on information gained from face- to- face discussions with key participants, attendance at events organised by the movement and associated groups, through a review of the Edu-factories various publications: books, journals and zines. The approach advocated by the Edu-factory collective will be illustrated with a report on two radical pedagogical projects – Student as Producer, based in Lincoln, in the UK, and Universitas Nomada in Rome, Italy, each operating inside and outside the HE system, and both examples of political education (i.e. teaching politically) with the ambition to create a new European university.The paper concludes with a discussion about teaching politically in the context of the current state of teaching political science in Universities. It will argue that, at the very least, approaches based on the principles of teaching politically can be used to refresh and revitalise curriculum; while, at the very most, teaching politically can be used to reinvent higher education.