A devastating analysis of what is happening to our universities
Stefan Collini is Professor Emeritus of Intellectual History and English Literature at Cambridge University and Fellow of the British Academy. He is a frequent contributor to The London Review of Books,The Times Literary Supplement, The Guardian, and The Nation, and he has been described by a reviewer as 'one of Britain's finest essayists and writers'. Other works include Common Writing: Essays on Literary Culture and Public Debate (2016), What Are Universities For? (2012) Absent Minds: Intellectuals in Britain (2006), and English Pasts: Essays in History and Culture (1999).
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%*
It is only through the consistent speech of dissident voices like
Stefan Collini that we have any hope of remaking the university as
a place defined by academic judgment and thought.
*Los Angeles Review of Books*
[Speaking of Universities] is a profound treatment of the place (or
plight) of higher education in the 21st-century neoliberal state.
It is recommended reading for anyone concerned with the future of
the university.
*The Sewanee Review*
[Stefan Collini] writes insightfully ... laying out aspects of the
predicament of universities in clear, sometimes vivid prose.
*New York Review of Books*
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