Bill Readings was Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at the Université de Montréal.

• Foreword by Diane Elam Acknowledgments 1. Introduction 2. The Idea of Excellence 3. The Decline of the Nation-State 4. The University within the Limits of Reason 5. The University and the Idea of Culture 6. Literary Culture 7. Culture Wars and Cultural Studies 8. The Posthistorical University 9. The Time of Study: 1968 10. The Scene of Teaching 11. Dwelling in the Ruins 12. The Community of Dissensus Notes Index

Insightful…a book of uncommon prescience that saw clearly that the rarefied ivory tower, with its idea of academia as a realm detached from the coarse affairs of the material world, was transforming into a credentialing bureaucracy.

Bill Readings was Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at the Université de Montréal.

• Foreword by Diane Elam Acknowledgments 1. Introduction 2. The Idea of Excellence 3. The Decline of the Nation-State 4. The University within the Limits of Reason 5. The University and the Idea of Culture 6. Literary Culture 7. Culture Wars and Cultural Studies 8. The Posthistorical University 9. The Time of Study: 1968 10. The Scene of Teaching 11. Dwelling in the Ruins 12. The Community of Dissensus Notes Index

Insightful…a book of uncommon prescience that saw clearly that the rarefied ivory tower, with its idea of academia as a realm detached from the coarse affairs of the material world, was transforming into a credentialing bureaucracy.

Bill Readings was Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at the Université de Montréal.

• Foreword by Diane Elam Acknowledgments 1. Introduction 2. The Idea of Excellence 3. The Decline of the Nation-State 4. The University within the Limits of Reason 5. The University and the Idea of Culture 6. Literary Culture 7. Culture Wars and Cultural Studies 8. The Posthistorical University 9. The Time of Study: 1968 10. The Scene of Teaching 11. Dwelling in the Ruins 12. The Community of Dissensus Notes Index

Insightful…a book of uncommon prescience that saw clearly that the rarefied ivory tower, with its idea of academia as a realm detached from the coarse affairs of the material world, was transforming into a credentialing bureaucracy.