Corporate Humanities in Higher Education

Jeffrey R. Di Leo is Dean of Arts and Sciences at the University of Houston-Victoria, USA.

• Introduction 1. Corporate Literature 2. Humanities, Inc. 3. Paralogical Inquiry 4. Apocalyptic Fear 5. Critical Affiliations 6. Wrangling with Rank 7. Authorial Prestige 8. The Publishing Market 9. The Junkyard of Ideas Coda

"Jeffrey R. Di Leo has written a sharp, visionary, and practical guide to the problems facing the humanities in higher education today. Corporate Humanities in Higher Education tones down the noise on this debate and explains the complex conflict caused when market mentalities administer programs dedicated to developing the human capacity for critical thought. Rather than wax nostalgic or throw up his hands in disgust, Di Leo uses his experience as a humanist and an administrator to offer keen insights into practical ways we can save the humanities while also saving our intellectual integrity. This is a must-have book for anyone interested in the future of higher education." - Sophia McClennen, Professor of Comparative Literature, Spanish, and Women's Studies, Penn State University, USA "As the neoliberal imperatives for corporate managerialism, vocationalism, instrumentalism, rationalization and national security creep threaten to eviscerate the humanities, Jeffrey R. Di Leo's Corporate Humanities in Higher Education makes a timely and desperately needed case for the strategic defense of the humanities as part of a commitment to building the public sphere, fostering engaged citizenship, and expanding critical pedagogical practices. Di Leo's interventions span cultural theory, practical administration, and the political economy of academic publishing to offer rare and unique insights of a university administrator and editor who is also a critical theorist. Corporate Humanities in Higher Education is a thoughtful, entertaining, and unique contribution to recent literature on the crisis of higher education and also a valuable resource for critical scholars working to defend and expand the besieged values, practices, and institutions of public life." - Kenneth J. Saltman, Professor of Education Policy Studies and Research, DePaul University, USA "The considered wisdom evident on every page of Jeffrey R. Di Leo's Corporate Humanities in Higher Education is a rallying cry for academics to rethink their conditioned timidity and professional naivete; for college presidents and public university system administrators to drastically reconsider as dysfunctional false economies the proliferation of vocational programs at the expense of core critical capabilities and values, Humanities research and publications, and broad cultural literacy, including foreign language training. A must-read for the communities of concern mobilizing themselves around basic issues of cultural dissemination and empowerment." - Henry Sussman, Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures, Yale University, USA "Readers should find ... Corporate Humanities in Higher Education: Moving Beyond the Neoliberal Academy of major importance" Journal of Modern Literature