Posthegemonic Comments
Nice post Jon, and glad as always to see you posting.
Perhaps you should email this to the list?
Very interesting post. My university has a very substantial PR department (although I'm sure they don't call them PR departments anymore - that's so 90's) and has just completed a major "Rebranding" exercise. If you buy something in the university shop, they will give you a plastic bag that says "UCL: We're changing the world - want to help?"
Anyway, in terms of the apparent ethical/political impulse here, I am reminded me of Slavoj Zizek's LRB essay "Nobody has to be vile" about corporate executives' commitment to "social responsibility."
As far as my university is concerned, there seems to be a parallel: at the moment when ideology is reduced to administration and the only "commitment" concerns what the university can offer the private sector, it becomes necessary to scramble to find ways the university is improving the world (and as it turns out, by the same circular logic as that of 'excellence', it is making the world a better place simply by existing).
You're thinking in the same vein as James Poulos at postmodernconservative.com in his February 23, 2007 post "The Sound of Inevitability" - the university is creating employees for the faceless "State".
Chris, thanks for your pointer to "The Sound of Inevitability". I see James has responded with a post entitled "Excellence at Stuff, and Stuff".
I'll try to get back to all this before long.
And Simon, yes indeed. I don't particularly think that Zizek's term "liberal communists" is all that helpful (I prefer just "liberals"), but if we're going to use it then surely Canadian university administrators are a pretty fine example of the breed.
It's important that we all commit to taking concrete steps toward excellence.
Sounds like a RomneBama speech. Just toss the words "future" and "hope" in there somewhere and bottle it. Syrup of Ipecac would be out of business in no time.
Great posting Jon. The Brits seem to be one step ahead of the game, or have actually redefined the game through the development of audit culture in the 80s and 90s. Line managers replaced respected thinkers. Look at Patrick Baert and Alan Shipman's article on audit culture in UK universities (I'll email it). The sad thing is that lots of others want to emulate it, from Europe to Australia.
There's a lot here I don't disagree with at all. Indeed, much of what you write echoes Ivan Illich. But when I read DeCapra's review of Readngs' book, I can't make my way through these words:
"He affirms in his own voice the image of a university in ruins and asks how best to dwell in the ruins of reason, culture, the centered subject-citizen, nationalism, and a sense of evangelical if not redemptive mission. For what is indeed definately ruined, in Reading's eyes, the university of culture that provided citizen-subjects for the nation-state and in which the humanities were the site of liberal education, displace religiosity, and identity -forming culture."
Given that this is all part of a larger argument, I still think "ruins of reason" needs clarifying, especially in an argument. Does he mean that literally or metaphorically? Also, is the sense of mission also ruined? I just can't tell. I'd appreciate your perspective here.
The last sentence I can't parse at all; words seem to be missing. Given the urgency of the argument, I'd like to know what that last sentence is saying.
Ironically, I garbled my own email address in the above.
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