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It is a common refrain that universities are in crisis and that the global spread of neoliberalism is to blame. While views differ about what constitutes the crisis the notion of crisis itself is not interrogated. Instead, commonplace notions of crisis are used in ways that seek to inject an air of alarm, urgency and agency. We adopt a different approach and argue that if we are to fully consider the links between current manifestations of globalization, universities and crisis, the notion of crisis must be understood in much broader historical, spatial and comparative terms. To assist us to offer such understanding we turn to conjunctural analysis, and associated theories of crisis and articulation. We begin by explaining these concepts. Then we consider the pre-Covid-19 conjuncture, its associated crises, its contradictions and its nexus of articulations, showing how these were expressed in universities at the time. Subsequently, we …