Critical University Studies: where are the independent academics?

A short note about current research and writing I'm doing into the context of corruption in academia

I’ve been doing lots of reading lately, trying to get to grips with a whole literature that until recently, I wasn’t aware existed - ‘critical university studies’ and connected with that - ‘propaganda studies’.

I’ve written before about how my awareness of the corporate playbook through my environmental activism, gave me a new lens with which to see the Covid era insanity:

Authenticity and Emotional Labour in a Post-Covid Era

But the massive exploration of the broken university system by so many authors over three decades, has left me overwhelmed. It’s so tragic that no-one seemed to be listening. To my knowledge, few if any of these authors became one of the Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, to a new, independent educational institution.

Why has it taken so long for us to realise we urgently need to go back to basics in education.

In one of the earlier publications in my literature search (from 1997), The University in Ruins by Bill Readings makes some interesting connections between the demise of professional and national identities, and the reduction in integrity and relevance for the university as a centre of knowledge, as this review summarises:

It is no longer clear what role the University plays in society. The structure of the contemporary University is changing rapidly, and we have yet to understand what precisely these changes will mean. Is a new age dawning for the University, the renaissance of higher education under way? Or is the University in the twilight of its social function, the demise of higher education fast approaching?

We can answer such questions only if we look carefully at the different roles the University has played historically and then imagine how it might be possible to live, and to think, amid the ruins of the University. Tracing the roots of the modern American University in German philosophy and in the work of British thinkers such as Newman and Arnold, Bill Readings argues that historically the integrity of the modern University has been linked to the nation-state, which it has served by promoting and protecting the idea of a national culture. But now the nation-state is in decline, and national culture no longer needs to be either promoted or protected. Increasingly, universities are turning into transnational corporations, and the idea of culture is being replaced by the discourse of “excellence.” On the surface, this does not seem particularly pernicious.

But in 25 years since this book was published, the evolution from New Public Management’s interference with education seems very pernicious, as Reading’s concerns have played out:

The author cautions, however, that we should not embrace this techno-bureaucratic appeal too quickly. The new University of Excellence is a corporation driven by market forces, and, as such, is more interested in profit margins than in thought. Readings urges us to imagine how to think, without concession to corporate excellence or recourse to romantic nostalgia within an institution in ruins. The result is a passionate appeal for a new community of thinkers.

But where are those ‘new community of thinkers’ now? The Palgrave series of 18 books about ‘Critical University Studies’ contains some similarly insightful exposes of ‘insider information’ about academia. In particular, John Smyth’s book “The Toxic University: zombie leadership, academic rock stars and neoliberal ideology” is damning of the administrative ‘leadership’ (and I use that term very loosely!) and the negative impact on academic freedoms, free speech more generally, and even common sense.

Will the independent free-thinking academics please step forward and be counted?

Some good examples of independent free-thinking academics are to be found at institutions like Hillsdale College, at the Brownstone Institute and the newly-proposed University of Austin. There is also the Academics for Academic Freedom (UK) and the US-based litigators group ‘Academic Freedom Alliance’, all doing excellent work in their fields. Jordan Peterson has mentioned he is also planning an independent academy.

I am continuing to research this topic and would be grateful if readers would like to share information about any tertiary education groups connected with the Freedom Movement in your country.