Killing thinking : the death of the universities

181 Pages·2004·6.25 MB·English

by  Mary Evans

Killing Thinking:
The Death of the
Universities
Related title
Where Have All the Intellectuals Gone? - Frank Furedi
Killing Thinking:
The Death of the
Universities
MARY EVANS

continuum
LONDON • NEW YORK
Continuum
The Tower Building 15 East 26th Street
11 York Road New York
London SE1 7NX NY 10010
www.continuumbooks.com
© Mary Evans 2004
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval
system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from
the British Library.
ISBN 0-8264-7312-1 (hardback)
0 8264 7313-X (paperback)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

Typeset by BookEns Ltd, Royston, Herts.
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Biddies Ltd, King's Lynn
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction ix
Through the Looking Glass: or what
Pierre Bourdieu and Kingsley Amis
have in common 1
The Heart of Darkness: Audit and
Compliance 29
The Language of Learning 49
Gendered Spaces 75
Iron Cages 103
Survival Strategies 129
Notes 155
Index 165
V
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Acknowledgements
This book was written in troubled times, both
personal and professional. During these months I
was extremely fortunate to receive help and
support from a number of people, all of whom
provided care, concern and extraordinary kind-
ness. My thanks, therefore, to John Baldock, David
Boothroyd, John and Jean Buss, Sarah Garter,
Rosemary Crompton, Hugh and Diane Gunning-
ham, Kathy Davis, Richard de Friend, Martha
and James Davis, Rod Edmond, Barbara Einhorn,
Frank Furedi, Sarah Harman, Jill Hemmings,
John Jervis, Terry Lovell, Pat Macpherson, Tracey
Milliner, Anne Phillips, Steve Pollock, Lizzie
Pollock, Karen Phillips, Frank and Kathy Parkin,
Kate Reed, Miri Song, Howard and Deborah
Stoate, Anne Seller, Janet Sayers, Jackie Stacey,
Geoffrey Stephenson, Sarah Tong, Jenny Williams,
Judith Webster, Steve and Jenny Uglow, Clare
Ungerson and Akane Hubuki-Bedford.
Two final debts are considerable: first my thanks
to Gemma Chapman for her skilled and patient
typing. Second, thank you to David, Tom and
Jamie for being there.
vii
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Introduction
'The more it costs, the less it's worth'
(Student slogan, London, 2003)
This book was inspired by the experience of
working in a British university in the latter part of
the twentieth century and the first years of the
twenty-first. It has not been a happy time, since
those years have seen the transformation of
teaching in universities into the painting-by-
numbers exercise of the hand-out culture and of
much research into an atavistic battle for funds.
Academic life has become subject to a degree of
bureaucratic c ontrol which needs urgent anthro-
pological investigation as a new form of social life
and universities would repay the investigation of
trained ethnographers. The rich mix of species
would be rewarding in itself, as would the contest
between the spirit of the university past with the
reality of the university present.
We are told that this world represents our best
national hope for intellectual vitality and creativ-
ity. We are also told that we should pay more to
enter it and to experience its rich resources. Yet
ix