[ecrea] New book: Speaking of universities

OUT NOW FROM VERSO:
SPEAKING OF UNIVERSITIES
By Stefan Collini

A devastating analysis of what is happening to our universities

https://www.versobooks.com/books/2403-speaking-of-universities

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In recent decades there has been an immense global surge in the numbers 
both of universities and of students. In the UK alone there are now over 
140 institutions teaching more subjects to nearly 2.5 million students. 
New technology offers new ways of learning and teaching. Globalization 
forces institutions to consider a new economic horizon. At the same time 
governments have systematically imposed new procedures regulating 
funding, governance, and assessment. Universities are being forced to 
behave more like business enterprises in a commercial marketplace than 
centres of learning.

In Speaking of Universities, historian and critic Stefan Collini 
analyses these changes and challenges the assumptions of policy-makers 
and commentators. He asks: does ‘marketization’ threaten to destroy what 
we most value about education; does this new era of ‘accountability’ 
distort what it purports to measure; and who does the modern university 
belong to? Responding to recent policies and their underlying ideology, 
the book is a call to ‘focus on what is actually happening and the 
clichés behind which it hides; an incitement to think again, think more 
clearly, and then to press for something better’.

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“Stefan Collini has uncommon lucidity, stamina, and unparalleled 
generosity in reading, on our behalf, the hugely verbose and obfuscating 
documents that convey and impose government policy. His patient form of 
reasoning in public, while it may seem to be overlooked, has very likely 
acted, like flood defences under ground, to forestall even worse 
developments here in the UK. His is a strong, persuasive voice, and we 
need to hear it.”
– Marina Warner

“Stefan Collini pulls back the curtain on the vacuous management-speak 
of the modern university. ‘Accountability' and ‘efficiency' are 
smokescreens for the sale of degrees, the creation of debt, and lower 
quality teaching dressed up as ‘excellence'. Any student who wants to 
understand what has happened to their university needs to read this 
book. Any parent who wants to know what lies behind the adverts for 
securing their child’s future might also be interested in what the words 
in the seller’s prospectus actually mean and why they are now there.”
– Danny Dorling, author of Inequality and the 1%

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HARDBACK:  FEBRUARY 2017 / 304 PAGES / ISBN 9781786631398 / $26.95 / 
£16.99 / $35.99 (CAN)

AVAILABLE AS AN E-BOOK

https://www.versobooks.com/books/2403-speaking-of-universities

For more information on university inspection/desk copies visit: 
http://www.versobooks.com/pg/desk-copies

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