Introduction Part I: Imagining the university 1. Losing, and regaining, the imagination 2. Perchance to dream 3. Valuing the imagination Part II: Structuring the imagination 4. Axes of the imagination 5. Sightings of the imagination Part III: Forms of the imagination 6. The ideological imagination 7. The dystopian imagination 8. The persuasive imagination 9. The utopian imagination Part IV: Being imaginative 10. Criteria of adequacy 11. Imagining the ecological university 12. The imaginative university Coda: A forgetting of air?
Ronald Barnett is Emeritus Professor of Higher Education, Institute
of Education, University of London. His books include The Idea of
Higher Education, A Will to Learn, Beyond All Reason and Being a
University. He has been a visiting speaker in thirty-five
countries.
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"Ronald Barnett, one of the world’s leading defenders of the
university, calls upon us to free our imaginations in order to
engage in the contemporary debate about university futures: what
could and should it become? In Imagining the University he
masterfully examines the form and structure of imagination in order
to re-examine the concept of the public university to expand,
contemplate and evaluate possibilities, and to assert and theorize
the ecological university. This work is bound to become a classic
within the genre." Professor Michael Peters, University of Waikato,
New Zealand and Emeritus, University of Illinois"Universities, as
Ronald Barnett has reminded us in a series of influential books,
have always existed in the mind as well as on the ground. This is
one explanation of their resilience, their ability to re-invent
themselves, and their wide cultural appeal. Progress is enabled by
acts of collective imagination. In this latest book, Barnett
delicately probes how such acts originate, are evaluated and can
succeed." David Watson, Professor of Higher Education and Principal
of Green Templeton College, Oxford"The University has always been a
place for imagination. This book offers a most timely critical
account of the current state of imagining the modern University
itself and opens up horizons for the public debate about the ‘good
university’. It covers a wide expanse of concepts and ideas for the
modern university and develops and applies tools for their
assessment. It is academically stimulating and practically
relevant, and I am sure it will become a key text about our
universities and their future development."
Prof Jürgen Enders, Center for Higher education Policy Studies,
University of Twente, NL"In these uncertain times for higher
education, Ron Barnett’s latest book invites us to ‘imagine’ a
variety of possible futures for universities. In doing so, he
presents us with his thoughts on the diversity of what is and has
been ‘the university’ alongside his thoughts about the diversity of
what could be ‘the university’, or in the author’s words, “the
possibility of possibilities”. The reader is presented with many
‘imaginations’ from which to choose though the author’s sympathies
for the ‘utopian’ form are pretty clear. This book is a good read,
an important read, and a read that will change things. I strongly
recommend it."
John Brennan, Emeritus Professor of Higher Education Research at
the Open University and a Visiting Professor at the University of
Bath and London Metropolitan University."The function of the future
of universities is being discussed now much more than at any point
over the past half-century. In imagining the university, Ron
Barnett challenges us to move beyond the established models of a
university and to dare, intellectually and socially, to think
better about what a university can and should be. This book should
be compulsory reading for everyone interested in universities."
Professor Michael Worton, Vice-Provost, University College London.
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