Reimagining Higher Education for a Liberated Future
We are building a new kind of learning space — one that honors deep scholarship, lived experience, and bold imagination.
The School of Radical Imagination is where academics, practitioners, and artists design and teach interactive, real-world courses for lifelong learners.
Our Mission: To unlock knowledge needed to birth the new world
We remove institutional barriers so that educators can teach what they believe is most important in this moment — and learners can engage with ideas that transform how they live and act in the world.
Meet the Founder
Besan Abu-Joudeh is the founder and steward of the School of Radical Imagination. Of Palestinian origin and living on the ancestral and unceded lands of the Piscataway people, Besan weaves together her background in economic development, social entrepreneurship, life coaching, and energy medicine to create spaces for collective healing and creative liberation.
After earning her undergraduate degree from the Wharton School of Business and a master’s in Development Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, Besan found herself on a journey to decolonize her understanding of social impact, success, and self.
Through her work as a social impact coach, Besan helps people reconnect with their purpose and bring forth creations that are rooted in love, liberation, and legacy. The School of Radical Imagination is her latest offering — a home for lifelong learners, artists, and changemakers who are daring to imagine otherwise and build the world that our ancestors dreamed of.
Why we exist
Higher education is in crisis.
Professors face burnout, low pay, lack of autonomy and job security.
Learners crave relevant, experiential learning that has real-world application.
Meanwhile, the world is facing rising fascism, isolation, and ecological collapse.
In this moment of rupture, we ask:
What kind of learning do we need to build the world we deserve?
What makes us different?
Cohort-Based Learning
Intimate, live classes with 15–25 students per cohort.
Faculty Autonomy
Instructors set their own topics, prices, and teaching schedule.
Learning for Liberation
Every course is rooted in the question: What knowledge helps us build a better world?