Full Description
Understanding the University constitutes the final volume in a trilogy - the first two books having been Being a University (2010) and Imagining the University (2012) - and represents the trilogy's ultimate aims and endeavours. The three volumes together offer a unique attempt at a fairly systematic and exhaustive level to map out just what it might be seriously to understand the extraordinarily complex entity that is known across the world as 'the university'.
Through examination of the conditions and possibilities underlying and affecting universities, this work offers an understanding of specific ideas of the university which can inform policies, strategies and practices in relation to the university.
This book is a must read for leaders and senior managers in universities , as well as those undertaking postgraduate studies in the policy and practice of higher education.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part 1: Planes of understanding
Reading the university
The great hole
Three planes of understanding
Part 2: The antagonistic university
Antagonisms
Seven forms of dialectic
Part 3: Glimpsing spaces
The possibility of possibilities
An inevitable remainder
The real thing
Holding together
Part 4: Positive moments
Universals and particulars
The university as agent
Work for the visionaries
Coda: On not living in the ruins
Notes
Bibliographic note
Bibliography
Index
