University in Crisis

From the Middle Ages to the University of Excellence

Inbunden, Engelska, 2023

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As is obvious to the casual newspaper reader, the debt-saddled student, the increasingly precarious university teaching force, the reactionary politician, and the budget-constrained administrator, the entire system of higher education is in crisis. This book brings necessary clarity to contentious debates about the state and future of the university by reconstructing the institution’s history around the theme of crisis. Since its origins in medieval Bologna, the university has been a site where humanity has worked out many of the thorniest questions of individual and collective purpose, often in what were described as crisis conditions. This book is not just a history of the university or a survey of contemporary debates, though. It is also an impassioned defence of the university as a privileged institution through which threats to collective self-governance are most acutely felt and from which strategies for its rehabilitation can be most fruitfully developed.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2023-11-20
Mått158 x 237 x 19 mm
Vikt449 g
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
SerieOff the Fence: Morality, Politics and Society
Antal sidor168
FörlagBloomsbury Publishing Plc
ISBN9781538174999

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Schapira offers a discursive, historical and philosophical analysis of higher education crises, analyzing primary documents such as the Port Huron Statement (1962). Universities have been the sites of student protests since 1229 at the University of Paris. Malcontent students and professors, meddling politicians, and neoliberal, efficiency-minded bureaucrats continue to kindle battles at revered institutions. The primary focus is on US settings, but Schapira also covers global conflicts, including Britain’s New Public Management scheme, which envisions universities as subject to a managed economy approach. Schapira draws on analyses by Jacques Derrida and especially Emmanuel Kant, who posited a normative ideal of the university philosophy faculty as enlightened governance “that takes upon itself the role of managing ... sources of perpetual conflict.” Schapira discusses the late-19th-century German model of governance, incorporating Wissenschaft and Bildung. He identifies the conflicts within universities' missions to be "humanistic enclaves," centers for civic and vocational training, and knowledge factories. Is there a university of excellence, as the subtitle suggests? A challenging examination of a foundational pillar of society. Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty.