Rethinking the university
Leverage and deconstruction
By Simon Wortham
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- Format: Paperback
- ISBN: 978-0-7190-8785-1
- Pages: 188
- Price: £13.99
- Published Date: May 2012
Description
Rethinking the university explores and develops key critical debates in the humanities (concerning, for example, postmodernism, New Historicism, political criticism, cultural studies, interdisciplinarity and deconstruction) in the context of the various crises widely felt to be facing academic institutions. The analysis of the characteristic features of today's university is guided by a close reading of Derrida's work on the question of the academic institution, particularly with regard to the motifs of leverage and disorientation.
This important topic has been the subject of heated debate in recent years and Rethinking the university offers clear and concise summaries of current work in the field as well as exploring original and challenging lines of enquiry on a number of issues of contemporary concern. In particular, Wortham argues that while Derrida's image of a university 'walking on two feet' presents us with a potentially paralysing problem, nevertheless it also enables a strong affirmation of the possibilities of academic life, work and effort.
Contents
Introduction
Part one - authorities
1. Van Gogh's shoes or, does the university have two left feet?
2. The 'glasse' of majesty
Part two - institutions
3. Excellence and division: the deconstruction of institutional politics
4. Multiple submissions and little scrolls of parchment: censorship, knowledge and the academy
Part three - Economies and exchanges
5. Bringing criticism to account: economy, exchange and cultural theory
6. Surviving theory, 'as if (it) were dead'
Conclusion
Author
Simon Wortham is Professor of English at Kingston University