Full Description
This book presents a critique of neoliberalism within UK Higher Education, taking its cue from approaches more usually associated with literary studies. It offers a sustained and detailed close reading of three works that might be understood to fall outside the established body of educational theory. The unconventional methodology and focus promote irreducible difference and complexity, and in this stage a resistance to reductive discourses of managerialism. Questioning the materialism to which all sides of the contemporary pedagogical debate increasingly appeal, the book sets out a challenge to investments in 'excellence', 'transparency' and objecthood. It will be of interest to students and researchers in the fields of education, sociology, and literary theory.
Contents
Chapter 1. Introduction: Transparency and Objecthood.- Chapter 2. '[...] not much like a grove [...]': Openness, Object, and Agora in 'The Lecherous Professor Revisited' by Diane Purkiss.- Chapter 3. Therapy and its Discontents: Bullying, Freedom and Self-Evidence in 'The Dangerous Rise of Therapeutic Education' by Kathryn Ecclestone and Dennis Hayes.- Chapter 4. New-Managerial Ontology: Materiality, Vision and Disclosure in 'Non-Representational Theory' by Nigel Thrift.
