In the brief talk below my esteemed colleague Dr Marius Kwint and I discuss helping students to think critically about capitalism, militarism and imperialism then and now, and how confronting racism, sexism and all other forms of human oppression must acknowledge that they are material, essential and structural to unequal and undemocratic institutions. Such problems won’t be solved by neoliberal PR stunts and box-ticking exercises aimed at making the status quo look more respectable.