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Uniwersytet w ruinie
Bill Readings (1960–1994), brytyjski literaturoznawca, profesor komparatystyki na Uniwersytecie w Montrealu. Zginął w wypadku, nim ukazała się drukiem jego książka Uniwersytet w ruinie.
Badając kondycję uniwersytetu u progu XXI w., autor stawia nas przed wyborem: czy iść na ustępstwa wobec korporacyjnej rzeczywistości, w której uczony staje się biurokratą,
a student świadomym konsumentem, czy pogrążać się w romantycznej nostalgii, pozostając w ruinach „dawnego” uniwersytetu.
Badając kondycję uniwersytetu u progu XXI w., autor stawia nas przed wyborem: czy iść na ustępstwa wobec korporacyjnej rzeczywistości, w której uczony staje się biurokratą,
a student świadomym konsumentem, czy pogrążać się w romantycznej nostalgii, pozostając w ruinach „dawnego” uniwersytetu.
300 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1996
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
April 18, 2020
A deeply thoughtful text and, if anything, Readings' critical analysis is even more relevant today as academia hurtles towards an uncertain future.
I hope to write a detailed review soon-ish.
I hope to write a detailed review soon-ish.
March 18, 2022
This is an insightful read. It clarifies an important problem faced by universities (specifically humanities departments): the idea of a unifying national culture has lost a fair amount of its importance for most people post-Cold War. Instead of initiating students into a national culture, humanities departments are asked, instead, to provide job training, i.e. classroom experience commodities that can be inserted into global market exchanges. The university wasn't built for that, Readings astutely reminds us, and maybe should not engage in that activity. The book gets a little strange in the last third when Readings attempts to provide an alternative vision of the function of the university (specifically the humanities). I wasn't able to follow the argument very closely and I'm not convinced Readings really knew what he wanted to say here. It seemed like a lot of prevarication and insinuation. I think there is evidence in the last third of the book that Readings thinks humanities departments should become saboteurs of capitalism, institutional versions of Bartleby the Scrivener. Instead of just saying this he deployed an opaque prose style to avoid controversy.
February 28, 2018
geez.
well, pretty laborious read, but it was pretty rewarding. I believe he died before finishing his last revisions of the book, and that is apparent. He repeats himself and his central claims a few times more than necessary.
OVERALL, very compelling. Bill argues that the University has shifted from a national/cultural identity creating/sustaining organism to a capitalist's job factory. The changes have stripped the University of an identifiable construct. Instead institutions hide behind the emptiness of "excellence" (the symulacrum of distraction).
What he suggests is allowing the university to jettison an obligation to carry any sort of purpose other than this: letting thoughts elevate and rub against each other (which I'm still confused about).
Anyways, a Goodread. But prepare for mental investment.
well, pretty laborious read, but it was pretty rewarding. I believe he died before finishing his last revisions of the book, and that is apparent. He repeats himself and his central claims a few times more than necessary.
OVERALL, very compelling. Bill argues that the University has shifted from a national/cultural identity creating/sustaining organism to a capitalist's job factory. The changes have stripped the University of an identifiable construct. Instead institutions hide behind the emptiness of "excellence" (the symulacrum of distraction).
What he suggests is allowing the university to jettison an obligation to carry any sort of purpose other than this: letting thoughts elevate and rub against each other (which I'm still confused about).
Anyways, a Goodread. But prepare for mental investment.
November 13, 2009
Money is now the measure of all things, and a crude cost-benefit logic pervades administrative decisions. University presidents pontificate about excellence while bean counters in the back rooms call the shots. The traditional university culture with its odd sense of community has been penetrated, disrupted and reconfigured by raw money power." A department can document excellence" all it wants, but if it cannot generate enough credit hours, its tenure will be short-lived. The result of this is devastating. "The hidden hand of the market distributes resources and rewards so as to ensure a proliferating freedom of market choices in higher education while denying the capacity to explore alternative values . . . . Knowledge is converted into information and students into consumers ' and transforming the ability to think into a capacity for information processing."
Personally, it's my observation that the days of factory education (let's see how many students we can cram in a lecture hall for English 101) as it evolved in the 20th century is probably doomed as students begin to seek out more individual ways to get an education; perhaps a combination of experience and online learning. Expectations have changed drastically in the last few decades and as students come to realize that that piece of paper we call a degree doesn't necessarily prepare them for a career or job nor higher pay, it will become more difficult to sell attending lectures by over-paid professors who teach but one class per week and have their grad students grade papers so they can write tomes that no one will read in pursuit of lifetime employment otherwise known as tenure.
One of the most important cases I read about years ago was handed down in Ohio. The local police department had required a BA for all applicants. One sued arguing that none of the skills required to be a good policeman required what was taught to get a BA. The judge agreed.
The author of University in Ruins makes a case that the university as we know it has outlived its purpose, one defined several centuries ago when it was needed to help solidify the national culture by fusing past and future tradition. This established role has been undermined by the .. "globalization of culture" and economies. So, what, asks Readings, "is the point of the university, if we realize that we are no longer to strive to realize a national identity, be it an ethnic essence or a republican will?" Surely, universities have been wracked by culture wars, a battle between the canonists and multiculturalists. The multiculturalists, by "lending primacy to the cultural have misunderstood that culture is no longer important to those in power who have switched their allegiance to Capital."
The university has become "an autonomous bureaucratic corporation" that adheres to the belief that what matters in today's world is "economic management" rather than "cultural conflict." Mundane values such as learning how to think no longer matter. The university is now a place where useful information is produced, marketed and consumed. "With devastating skill Readings takes apart the rhetoric of 'excellence' with which universities cover the emptiness at their core. Rankings measure it, and internal budgets focus on it. And the joy of excellence is that we all agree about it. Its invocation 'overcomes the problem of the question of value across disciplines, since excellence is the common denominator of good research in all fields,' while all manner of multicultural diversities can be accepted as equally excellent." "The trouble is that excellence is meaningless when it comes to key decisions (for example, to close a classics department and open up a multi-cultural-studies program). 'So to say that excellence is a criterion is to say absolutely nothing other than that the committee will not reveal the criteria used to judge applications.' The pursuit of excellence allows the university 'to understand itself solely in terms of the structure of corporate administration.' A key slippage then occurs, as the quite proper demand that the university be accountable gets translated into the reductionist idea that everything is simply a matter of accounting.
The book has an incomplete feel to it, perhaps explained by the death of the author in the crash of the American Eagle flight to Chicago in 1994. Apparently he did not have time to complete it.
Personally, it's my observation that the days of factory education (let's see how many students we can cram in a lecture hall for English 101) as it evolved in the 20th century is probably doomed as students begin to seek out more individual ways to get an education; perhaps a combination of experience and online learning. Expectations have changed drastically in the last few decades and as students come to realize that that piece of paper we call a degree doesn't necessarily prepare them for a career or job nor higher pay, it will become more difficult to sell attending lectures by over-paid professors who teach but one class per week and have their grad students grade papers so they can write tomes that no one will read in pursuit of lifetime employment otherwise known as tenure.
One of the most important cases I read about years ago was handed down in Ohio. The local police department had required a BA for all applicants. One sued arguing that none of the skills required to be a good policeman required what was taught to get a BA. The judge agreed.
The author of University in Ruins makes a case that the university as we know it has outlived its purpose, one defined several centuries ago when it was needed to help solidify the national culture by fusing past and future tradition. This established role has been undermined by the .. "globalization of culture" and economies. So, what, asks Readings, "is the point of the university, if we realize that we are no longer to strive to realize a national identity, be it an ethnic essence or a republican will?" Surely, universities have been wracked by culture wars, a battle between the canonists and multiculturalists. The multiculturalists, by "lending primacy to the cultural have misunderstood that culture is no longer important to those in power who have switched their allegiance to Capital."
The university has become "an autonomous bureaucratic corporation" that adheres to the belief that what matters in today's world is "economic management" rather than "cultural conflict." Mundane values such as learning how to think no longer matter. The university is now a place where useful information is produced, marketed and consumed. "With devastating skill Readings takes apart the rhetoric of 'excellence' with which universities cover the emptiness at their core. Rankings measure it, and internal budgets focus on it. And the joy of excellence is that we all agree about it. Its invocation 'overcomes the problem of the question of value across disciplines, since excellence is the common denominator of good research in all fields,' while all manner of multicultural diversities can be accepted as equally excellent." "The trouble is that excellence is meaningless when it comes to key decisions (for example, to close a classics department and open up a multi-cultural-studies program). 'So to say that excellence is a criterion is to say absolutely nothing other than that the committee will not reveal the criteria used to judge applications.' The pursuit of excellence allows the university 'to understand itself solely in terms of the structure of corporate administration.' A key slippage then occurs, as the quite proper demand that the university be accountable gets translated into the reductionist idea that everything is simply a matter of accounting.
The book has an incomplete feel to it, perhaps explained by the death of the author in the crash of the American Eagle flight to Chicago in 1994. Apparently he did not have time to complete it.
May 26, 2022
An interesting text that feels unfinished, in the sense that Readings died (at age 34 in 1994) prior to publication. He switches among several different modes and arguments throughout, moving along a spectrum from practical critique (universities hire too many administrators, who have too much power) to historical analysis (since the nation state no longer occupies a central place in culture, the university has lost its role as promoter of national culture) to philosophical arguments (some abortive Habermas thing about a future role for the university as a place where Thought is inscribed through mutually-reinforcing commitments).
This progression gives the book a feeling of trailing off, like Readings wanted to write about daily concerns at his job, then realized he needed to work in some of his Lyotard and Habermas stuff to get the book published by Harvard. He succeeded there (posthumously), but without engaging much beyond a basic descriptive critique of the ideology of the modern university.
I think a more historical approach that eschewed proposing "solutions" would have produced a more compelling total work: Readings's readings of Kant and Humboldt (and other Germans) with regard to 19th century universities form the strongest (middle) sections of the book, and, unlike Readings, I have no issue with allowing the university's ruins to continue to degrade in place at an accelerating rate.
This progression gives the book a feeling of trailing off, like Readings wanted to write about daily concerns at his job, then realized he needed to work in some of his Lyotard and Habermas stuff to get the book published by Harvard. He succeeded there (posthumously), but without engaging much beyond a basic descriptive critique of the ideology of the modern university.
I think a more historical approach that eschewed proposing "solutions" would have produced a more compelling total work: Readings's readings of Kant and Humboldt (and other Germans) with regard to 19th century universities form the strongest (middle) sections of the book, and, unlike Readings, I have no issue with allowing the university's ruins to continue to degrade in place at an accelerating rate.
March 31, 2020
'the global system of capital no longer requires a cultural content in terms of which to interpellate and manage subjects...The statistical poll performs the work of normalisation indifferently to the content of the information it discovers. Consensus can this be achieved without the appeal to the synthesising power of a metonymic subject of culture as the instance that ‘makes sense’ of symbolic life as a whole. Conformity no longer means conformity to an idea of culture. There is no common reader.'
states the problem much clearer than most other surveys of the problem do, very much to its credit
states the problem much clearer than most other surveys of the problem do, very much to its credit
Read
April 12, 2012Read Chapter 2: The Idea of Excellence
August 13, 2016
Un chantier de réflexion critique sur l'université s'est ouvert au Québec à la suite de l'éclatement d'une opposition massive et durable à la hausse des frais et à l'austérité plus généralement. Mais ici comme ailleurs, les réflexions avaient déjà cours. Readings partage le flambeau des précurseurs avec Lyotard qui le précède avec La condition postmoderne. Ayant traduit le philosophe et l'ayant fait connaître au public américain, Readings lui reprend des idées phares dans cet ouvrage paru originellement en 1997, composé à partir de six publications dans des revues d'études littéraires.
Comme Lyotard, Readings prétend constater la fin d'une compréhension partagée, au méta-récit, de la vie commune. Ce méta-récit est la culture comme ensemble d'idées fondamentales dégagées des traditions et héritages ethniques via une réflexion critique, rationnelle et historique que l'Université avait charge de produire et transmettre; en même temps que d'en former le sujet ou héros porteur, capable de répondre aux exigences de la condition politique moderne, de l'autonomie par la connaissance, de l'auto-gouvernement par l'exercice de la volonté. Culture dont la révélation des idées constitutives assurait l'unité englobante des sphères spécialisées des sciences, des techniques, du droit et de l'économie ; culture dont les idées constituaient autant de facettes d'un absolu par la découverte duquel l'humanité accédait à la communication transparente, ré-accédait au modèle de communauté politique idéale issue de l'antiquité grecque. Culture de la re-fondation en raison de l'unité perdue de cette communauté politique rationnelle idéale.
La culture ainsi comprise était l'idée fondatrice de l'université moderne dont Readings retrace la genèse et les variantes nationales (Française, Anglaise, Allemande); variantes plaçant respectivement la raison philosophique, la littérature nationale et la culture anthropologique en foyer de l'auto-révélation, de l'unification intelligible,et de la prise de participation individuelle subjective au destin collectif.
La fin du récit de la culture nationale, la fin concomitante du sujet-citoyen chez qui la référence à l'appropriation politique du sens et des conditions de vie avait valeur de médiation symbolique, est occasionnée principalement par la mutation capitaliste, par la dé-territorialisation et constitution apatride de l'économie capitaliste. Readings ré-affirme à plusieurs reprises ce rôle primordial. Une économie qui assure sa régulation sans requérir de consensus nationaux, identitaires et culturels, réduit les conditions modernes de compréhension de la vie commune à l'insignifiance, à la caducité.
Dans les ruines de l'université, Readings reprend donc la détermination lyotardienne par l'économique et offre plusieurs ajouts de valeur par rapport à La condition postmoderne. Notamment le remplacement de la culture, et de la dialectique des Lumières (ignorance > connaissance, dépendance > autonomie), par un discours d'administrateur, gestionnaire comptable centré sur l'excellence. Ce discours est post-historique (il ne désigne pas les collectivités nationales ni même les sujets-citoyens d'États-nations, comme les acteurs dont la volonté est formatrice responsable du cours des choses) et dé-référentialisé (il n'articule plus l'université, les tâches d'enseignement, de recherche et d'administration, à la construction, transmission, réflexion sur un monde commun; l'excellence n'est que optimisation et maximisation des opérations internes de l'université : nombre d'admissions, de diplômes décernés dans les temps, nombre de publications, de subventions reçues; évaluation de performance, etc.)
Readings offre une contribution de grande valeur par le sérieux et l'ampleur de sa réflexion. Il reconnaît et désamorce la plupart des reproches qui sont couramment adressés aux ouvrages de réflexion substantielle et critique : le reproche d'adhérer trop systématiquement à des discours officiels et publicitaires (dont le classement Maclean's des universités) ; reproche d'ignorer l'importance des contre-exemples, dispersements et manifestations empiriques partielles ou à plus forte raison antithétiques par rapport aux modèles idéaux-typiques; reproche d'ambiguïté entre observation d'un fait accompli (nous sommes dans les ruines de l'université) et d'un processus en cours, inachevé ou tendanciel, partiel.
Ce dernier point est un des plus problématiques si l'on considère que Readings discrédite toute solution de continuité entre les idées fondatrices de l'université moderne et les actions à entreprendre pour résister à la toute-puissance du discours bureaucratique administratif comptable - discours qui réduit tout à l'évaluation de performance chiffrée sommairement (dans un mépris complet du 'chronotope' spécifique à la formation de connaissances). Ce discrédit apparaît dans sa radicalité dans les deux derniers chapitres où Readings récuse toute identification des tâches à venir avec la formation de consensus raisonnables, la mise en place d'un sens de la communauté fondée sur des bases humaines communes. Sa définition de la justice (comme remplacement de la vérité) a un parfum mystique avoué tant elle accumule les coupures de pont avec les réalités tangibles.
Néanmoins, en dépit des réserves que les derniers chapitres appellent, fût-ce du simple fait de leur espoir (typiquement moderne - à la française) de table rase et rupture avec les idéaux de la condition politique qui ont fondé l'université; réserve justifiée du fait, aussi, qu'il est plus difficile de proposer du nouveau que de critiquer de l'ancien et du présent, la lecture de Dans les ruines de l'université est un exercice incontournable pour quiconque réfléchit à l'université (et plus généralement, à la fin de la société).
Comme Lyotard, Readings prétend constater la fin d'une compréhension partagée, au méta-récit, de la vie commune. Ce méta-récit est la culture comme ensemble d'idées fondamentales dégagées des traditions et héritages ethniques via une réflexion critique, rationnelle et historique que l'Université avait charge de produire et transmettre; en même temps que d'en former le sujet ou héros porteur, capable de répondre aux exigences de la condition politique moderne, de l'autonomie par la connaissance, de l'auto-gouvernement par l'exercice de la volonté. Culture dont la révélation des idées constitutives assurait l'unité englobante des sphères spécialisées des sciences, des techniques, du droit et de l'économie ; culture dont les idées constituaient autant de facettes d'un absolu par la découverte duquel l'humanité accédait à la communication transparente, ré-accédait au modèle de communauté politique idéale issue de l'antiquité grecque. Culture de la re-fondation en raison de l'unité perdue de cette communauté politique rationnelle idéale.
La culture ainsi comprise était l'idée fondatrice de l'université moderne dont Readings retrace la genèse et les variantes nationales (Française, Anglaise, Allemande); variantes plaçant respectivement la raison philosophique, la littérature nationale et la culture anthropologique en foyer de l'auto-révélation, de l'unification intelligible,et de la prise de participation individuelle subjective au destin collectif.
La fin du récit de la culture nationale, la fin concomitante du sujet-citoyen chez qui la référence à l'appropriation politique du sens et des conditions de vie avait valeur de médiation symbolique, est occasionnée principalement par la mutation capitaliste, par la dé-territorialisation et constitution apatride de l'économie capitaliste. Readings ré-affirme à plusieurs reprises ce rôle primordial. Une économie qui assure sa régulation sans requérir de consensus nationaux, identitaires et culturels, réduit les conditions modernes de compréhension de la vie commune à l'insignifiance, à la caducité.
Dans les ruines de l'université, Readings reprend donc la détermination lyotardienne par l'économique et offre plusieurs ajouts de valeur par rapport à La condition postmoderne. Notamment le remplacement de la culture, et de la dialectique des Lumières (ignorance > connaissance, dépendance > autonomie), par un discours d'administrateur, gestionnaire comptable centré sur l'excellence. Ce discours est post-historique (il ne désigne pas les collectivités nationales ni même les sujets-citoyens d'États-nations, comme les acteurs dont la volonté est formatrice responsable du cours des choses) et dé-référentialisé (il n'articule plus l'université, les tâches d'enseignement, de recherche et d'administration, à la construction, transmission, réflexion sur un monde commun; l'excellence n'est que optimisation et maximisation des opérations internes de l'université : nombre d'admissions, de diplômes décernés dans les temps, nombre de publications, de subventions reçues; évaluation de performance, etc.)
Readings offre une contribution de grande valeur par le sérieux et l'ampleur de sa réflexion. Il reconnaît et désamorce la plupart des reproches qui sont couramment adressés aux ouvrages de réflexion substantielle et critique : le reproche d'adhérer trop systématiquement à des discours officiels et publicitaires (dont le classement Maclean's des universités) ; reproche d'ignorer l'importance des contre-exemples, dispersements et manifestations empiriques partielles ou à plus forte raison antithétiques par rapport aux modèles idéaux-typiques; reproche d'ambiguïté entre observation d'un fait accompli (nous sommes dans les ruines de l'université) et d'un processus en cours, inachevé ou tendanciel, partiel.
Ce dernier point est un des plus problématiques si l'on considère que Readings discrédite toute solution de continuité entre les idées fondatrices de l'université moderne et les actions à entreprendre pour résister à la toute-puissance du discours bureaucratique administratif comptable - discours qui réduit tout à l'évaluation de performance chiffrée sommairement (dans un mépris complet du 'chronotope' spécifique à la formation de connaissances). Ce discrédit apparaît dans sa radicalité dans les deux derniers chapitres où Readings récuse toute identification des tâches à venir avec la formation de consensus raisonnables, la mise en place d'un sens de la communauté fondée sur des bases humaines communes. Sa définition de la justice (comme remplacement de la vérité) a un parfum mystique avoué tant elle accumule les coupures de pont avec les réalités tangibles.
Néanmoins, en dépit des réserves que les derniers chapitres appellent, fût-ce du simple fait de leur espoir (typiquement moderne - à la française) de table rase et rupture avec les idéaux de la condition politique qui ont fondé l'université; réserve justifiée du fait, aussi, qu'il est plus difficile de proposer du nouveau que de critiquer de l'ancien et du présent, la lecture de Dans les ruines de l'université est un exercice incontournable pour quiconque réfléchit à l'université (et plus généralement, à la fin de la société).
June 27, 2023
Very insightful read into the problems afflicting the contemporary university system. Read it mainly for the critique for a paper. Not entirely sure what his proposed solution is; but the critique is far-reaching as he charts a history of the university to explore how its conceptualized purpose in society has changed. The contemporary university due to the volatile developments of contemporary capitalism is based on an empty idea of 'Excellence' based on quantitative factors (accounting) instead of being accountable in terms of other ideals like national culture or social critique. This makes universities more vocational institutions for the future job market instead of studying broader liberal arts for the purpose of becoming better human beings. Worth reading.
April 4, 2025
Managerialism and Bureaucratic Logic:
Universities function more like corporations, emphasizing efficiency, profitability, and market-driven values.
Faculty and students are increasingly treated as employees and customers.
The Fragmentation of Knowledge
The traditional idea of a unified knowledge system is dissolving.
Disciplines are splintering, and the university no longer provides a coherent intellectual or cultural mission.
The Meaninglessness of "Excellence" → Universities justify tuition hikes and student debt under the vague pursuit of "excellence" without clear academic benefits.
Market Logic Replacing Intellectual Purpose → Higher education increasingly operates like a business, with students treated as customers and knowledge as a product.
Universities function more like corporations, emphasizing efficiency, profitability, and market-driven values.
Faculty and students are increasingly treated as employees and customers.
The Fragmentation of Knowledge
The traditional idea of a unified knowledge system is dissolving.
Disciplines are splintering, and the university no longer provides a coherent intellectual or cultural mission.
The Meaninglessness of "Excellence" → Universities justify tuition hikes and student debt under the vague pursuit of "excellence" without clear academic benefits.
Market Logic Replacing Intellectual Purpose → Higher education increasingly operates like a business, with students treated as customers and knowledge as a product.
November 14, 2016
As an uncompleted manuscript (published posthumously), it is not fair to critique the argumentative structure of the book. So, read it for what it is: a reflective text encouraging deeper thinking about the conceptual paradigm underlying the administration of contemporary higher education. Readings' reflections on the posthistorical university were "ahead of its time" and anticipated the critiques of University-as-Excellence, and perhaps given this publication date of 1994, the text remains hopeful and less cynical than most criticisms levied against the the university as business model.
February 9, 2019
I thought that this was excellent in its diagnosis of problems in the modern university system. I'm not sold on the solutions though. At least, not the majority of them.
August 12, 2013
Modern university has been linked to the notion of nation-state, and it has historically protected national culture, which is now in decline, and the notion of "culture" has been replaced by the discourse of "excellence". I like this argument, and especially the fact that Readings recognizes the emptiness of "excellence", its lack of content, which he calls 'dereferentialization'. His other important insight is the need for the university to educate students not simply for autonomy and self-fulfillment, but for the awareness of the community - and his notion of the 'community' is also interesting. He regards community as a heteronomous, made of singularities, not subjects, which have obligation toward one another, but are not linked by nationality or other similarities... This would mean being responsible for all others, not casting some 'others' out because they are different in some way. His conclusions are lacking, not elaborated enough, maybe because there are no fixed solutions for the education and university, for the world?
August 12, 2012
Why did it take me so long to read this book?!? It says everything I've thought about academia since I entered the world in 1992. Higher education is nothing more than a corporate universe, with the university at the heart of an administrative-bureaucratic organization of culture. The argument that the university lost its mission with the collapse of the nation-state as the founding economic production, circulation, and consumption is devastating and in my judgment incontrovertible. I would like to hold out the hope Readings does for the future of thinking in institutional contexts. But I am not convinced; and it's hard to tell whether he was. All universities are now run for profit, if by that we mean they are run on the lucrative "productivity" of their faculty members' generating patents for technical transfer. Perhaps the future of thinking is in small groups and "orders" (like medieval Christianity), lifelong learning centers, etc. Sadly I remain skeptical of those as well.
April 13, 2012
Readings makes some good points, but he writes like an asshole. Much of his theoretical power is derived from the construction of his scholarly presence as a "prophet silenced too soon."
Upon finishing, it seems to me that Readings never asks himself an essential question: in his own study and analysis of the state of the university, does he cling too strongly to the nostalgic past of University as repository and disseminator of subjective national identity and objective cultural knowledge? His text is predicated upon that question of "should we be concerned about the changing status and identity of the university" being answered with a resounding "yes."
Though my answer would be "yes" as well, I have to criticize the half-blind argument he constructs here; it's an argument for which he has determined his answer before even asking his question.
Upon finishing, it seems to me that Readings never asks himself an essential question: in his own study and analysis of the state of the university, does he cling too strongly to the nostalgic past of University as repository and disseminator of subjective national identity and objective cultural knowledge? His text is predicated upon that question of "should we be concerned about the changing status and identity of the university" being answered with a resounding "yes."
Though my answer would be "yes" as well, I have to criticize the half-blind argument he constructs here; it's an argument for which he has determined his answer before even asking his question.
September 5, 2012
Besides feeling rather dated 20 years later, Readings' argument lacks substance or interesting approaches to the "problem of higher education." Readings is too invested in the promotion of the old vanguard and retains a nostalgia for the "true" disciplines. However, he also encourages the reader to throw out nostalgia in considering his solutions for a better university (which having never really defined the exact problem, are lacking at best), something he clearly has not done himself.
I would recommend anyone interested in the problems of the university look elsewhere. There are probably much better books out there that are not so entrenched in Marxist and postmodern jargon that provide a clear outline of problems and solutions, that whether valid, are at least a little more convincing.
I would recommend anyone interested in the problems of the university look elsewhere. There are probably much better books out there that are not so entrenched in Marxist and postmodern jargon that provide a clear outline of problems and solutions, that whether valid, are at least a little more convincing.
March 31, 2013
Academic Text, review not charming or witty.
Favorite part this newish velvet-like cover binding happening.
Readings's thesis is that the University is moving from its role as the cultural arm of the Nation-state to a bureaucratic corporation where administrators see their students as customers (as quoted by the OSU President) and teachers must fight to maintain their disciplines despite a rapid shift toward industrializing knowledge. Readings suggests ultimately that a dedication to Thought (the definition of this proper noun version of "thought" not completely clear to me) in order to live among the "ruins" and to not attempt to regain the University's former role out of nostalgia but out of a dedication to justice.
First two chapters best.
Idea of the role of the teacher very informative (process over product, duh).
Velvety cover.
Favorite part this newish velvet-like cover binding happening.
Readings's thesis is that the University is moving from its role as the cultural arm of the Nation-state to a bureaucratic corporation where administrators see their students as customers (as quoted by the OSU President) and teachers must fight to maintain their disciplines despite a rapid shift toward industrializing knowledge. Readings suggests ultimately that a dedication to Thought (the definition of this proper noun version of "thought" not completely clear to me) in order to live among the "ruins" and to not attempt to regain the University's former role out of nostalgia but out of a dedication to justice.
First two chapters best.
Idea of the role of the teacher very informative (process over product, duh).
Velvety cover.
April 14, 2014
Readings does a great job raising some very real and important issues with the modern University. The fact that most institutions aka corporations today are completely profit driven instead of focused on promoting critical thought as Universities should, as well as quantitative performance measures to determine the "excellence," serves as a huge problem. His proposed solution in the last chapters is slightly unclear, but from what I gathered, he wants to ensure that classrooms have a curriculum that induces critical thinking and learning through teaching students opposing topics within the same course. I think that only addresses a minute portion of the problems that exist, but as long as we move in the right direction. I love that he is so optimistic about change being possible even in a time of "ruins", as we all should be.
September 2, 2016
A valuable reflection. This review is not meant as damning by faint praise, but rather to remain succinct as well as sincere: Readings really thinks through many issues which, of course, have only gotten work in the 15+ years since its publication.
Currently Reading
September 5, 2009Whilst juggling two campuses of critique in my mind, during this semi-synesthesic flirtation w. grad school, i am reaching toward Readings for small puffs of light.
October 27, 2010
Interesting, but the text is a bit over bearing. However; it makes you think and even at times made me angry.
October 20, 2013
Really identified with the questions of the book regarding the search for cultural identity vs the goal of excellence. Just about all the references went over my head though.
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