The Post-Corporate University
We would like to bring to your attention an
online experiment that is currently
taking place titled The Post-Corporate
University. Edited and curated by Davin
Heckman, it is the second volume in Culture
Machine?s Liquid Books series. The
volume is available now online and is open for discussion, contributions and
open collaboration. Please visit
http://liquidbooks.pbworks.com/The+Post-Corporate+University
The Post-Corporate University starts from an
assumption that the University is
in crisis and that this crisis has been caused by the social and economic
characteristics of neoliberalism. Asking the
question, Is Another University
Possible?, it provides space for multiple answers and interventions.
Please visit the site, read Davin Heckman?s chapter, 'Neoliberal Arts and the
21st Century University', and contribute to the discussions, the bibliography
and the book.
About the Liquid Books Series
Culture Machine?s online ?liquid books? to which everyone is invited to
contribute are written and developed in an
open, cooperative, decentralised,
multi-user-generated fashion: not just by their
initial ?authors?, ?editors?, ?creators? or
?curators?, but by a multiplicity of
collaborators distributed around the world.
They are freely available for anyone, anywhere, to read, reproduce and
distribute. Once they have requested access, users are also able to rewrite,
add to, edit, annotate, tag, remix, reformat,
reinvent and reuse them, or even
produce alternative parallel versions of them. In fact, they are expressly
invited and encouraged to do so, as the project
relies on such an intervention.
It is hoped that the Liquid Books project will raise a number of important
questions for ideas of academic authorship,
attribution, publication, citation,
accreditation, fair use, quality control, peer
review, copyright, intellectual
property, content creation and cultural studies. For instance, with its open
editing and free content, the project decentres the author and editor
functions, making everyone potential authors/editors. It also addresses an
issue raised recently by Geert Lovink: why are wikis not utilised more to
create, develop and change theory and theoretical concepts, instead of
theory continuing to be considered as the ?terrain of the sole author who
contemplates the world, preferably offline, surrounded by a pile of books, a
fountain pen, and a notebook??
At the same time, in ?What Is an Author??, Michel Foucault warns that any
attempt to avoid using the concept of the author to close and fix the meaning
of the text risks having a limit and a unity
imposed on it in a different way: by
means of the concept of the ?work?. To what extent does users? ability to
rewrite, remix, reversion and reinvent this
liquid ?book? then render untenable
any attempt to impose a limit and a unity on it as a ?work?? And what are the
political, ethical and social consequences of such ?liquidity? for ideas that
depend on the concept of the ?work? for their effectivity: those concerning
attribution, citation, copyright, intellectual property, academic success,
promotion, tenure, and so on?
To find out more, please go to the first Liquid
Book, New Cultural Studies: The
Liquid Theory Reader:
http://liquidbooks.pbwiki.com/New+Cultural+Studies:+The+Liquid+Theory+Reader
For a quick and easy-to-read guide on how to collaborate on the writing,
editing and curating of a Liquid Book, please visit:
http://liquidbooks.pbwiki.com/How-to-Contribute-to-a-Liquid-Book
Clare Birchall and Gary Hall
