Neoliberalism and the Death of the Public University (original) (raw)

Anthropologists witnessing and reshaping the neoliberal academy

2017

Questo Forum prosegue il dibattito aperto da un precedente Forum di Anuac (vol. 5, n. 1, giugno 2016) sulle trasformazioni dell’accademia al tempo del neoliberismo e le relative conseguenze sul futuro dell’antropologia. Auspichiamo che queste ulteriori testimonianze e commenti inducano chi lavora e studia all’universita a formare una coalizione transnazionale capace di immaginare nuove visioni di universita. Il Forum presenta contributi di Virginia R. Dominguez, Sam Beck, Carl A. Maida, Martin A. Mills, Berardino Palumbo, Alan Smart, Ger Duijzings, Alexis M. Jordan & Shaheen M. Christie, Boone W. Shear, Alexander Koensler & Cristina Papa, e del Reclaiming Our University Movement.

Anthropologists in/of the neoliberal academy

Forum analysing the state of universities today, edited by Tracey Heatherington and Filippo M. Zerilli. Short pieces by Cris SHORE & Susan WRIGHT, Vintilă MIHĂILESCU, Sarah GREEN, Gabriela VARGAS-CETINA & Steffan Igor AYORA-DIAZ, Tracey HEATHERINGTON, Dimitris DALAKOGLOU, Noelle MOLÉ LISTON, Susana NAROTZKY, Jaro STACUL, Meredith WELCH-DEVINE, and Jon P. MITCHELL. Piece by Sarah Green entitled "The universities of Manchester and Helsinki: Different paths"

Neoliberalisation and the “Death of the Public University”

Anuac, 2016

The advance of neoliberalism is often linked to what many authors describe as the "death of the public university". Taking up this theme, we explore the idea of the "neoliberal university" as a model and its implications for academia. We argue that this model is having a transformative effect, not only the core values and distinctive purpose of the public university, but also on academic subjectivities of the professional ethos that has traditionally shaped academia.

Book Review: Neoliberalization, Universities and the Public Intellectual

Across the globe, neoliberal reforms are gradually permeating higher education through the consolidation of the logic of consumerism, the increasing control of productivity, the quantification of the value of academic work, and the marketization of education. We are now faced with this pressing question: how can educators and scholars in higher education assume the role of promoting social justice and defending authentic teaching, learning, and scholarship in this increasingly corporate educational environment?

“A strange modernity”: On the contradictions of the neoliberal university

2017

While many commentators see neoliberalism as a monolithic force changing universities into businesses, in reality its shared veneer of rhetorical vocabulary obscures profound and irresolvable practical contradictions – contradictions that make university life impossible, even in “business” terms.

The University, Neoliberalism, and the Humanities: A History

Humanities

Neoliberalism has since the 1970s had a significant negative impact on higher education in the U.S., but this ideology and political program is not solely to blame for the current situation of the humanities or the university. The American university was never the autonomous institution imagined by German idealists, but it was rather always strongly connected to both the state and civil society. Many of the cultural currents and social forces that have led to the reduction in public spending on higher education and to lower enrollments in the humanities long antedate neoliberalism.

Yang, P. (2016) Figuring out the university and the student in neoliberal times: reviews of Learning under neoliberalism (Hyatt, Shear and Wright 2015) and Figuration work (Nielsen 2015). Social Anthropology, 24(2), 243-248

The university today is in flux, and so is the nature of learning and what it means to be a university student. While terms like ‘neoliberalism’ and ‘globalisation’ have been spoken of so frequently these days – both in academic and non-academic contexts – that they border on becoming hollow clichés, not engaging with these concepts and their implications for higher education transformations worldwide would not only represent a loss of a critical intellectual opportunity but, more seriously still, also the potential risk of seeing the university and the student slip into shapes and forms that we might retrospectively find unsettling and undesirable. Learning under neoliberalism, edited by Hyatt, Shear and Wright (2015), and Figuration work, authored by Gritt B. Nielsen (2015), are two good examples of such critical engagement. In this essay, I take turns to review these two recently published works, summarising their scopes and notable contributions for readers who are interested in an anthropological/ethnographic take on critical higher education studies from the Euro-American perspective.

Working in, against and beyond the neoliberal university

This paper explores some contemporary issues and challenges facing those working in Adult and Higher Education and possible responses: - contexts and critiques of the ongoing neoliberalisation of both university and wider society - possible responses rooted in critical educational theories speaking to the need for educations for eco-social justice