The Slow Professor
Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy, Tenth Anniversary Edition
2nd Edition
Published on 23. September 2025
Book
Hardback
208 pages
978-1-4875-5946-5 (ISBN)
Description
A decade after its initial release, The Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy returns with an expanded anniversary edition that both reaffirms and reignites its call to resist the corporatization of academic life. In The Slow Professor, Maggie Berg and Barbara K. Seeber discuss how adopting the principles of the Slow movement in academic life can counter the erosion of humanistic education. Building on their original groundbreaking work, the authors offer fresh insights and reflections on the evolving landscape of higher education, while thoughtfully responding to critiques of Slow principles.
This edition includes the full original text, a foreword by Stefan Collini, a new introduction, and sixteen contributions from academics and professionals across disciplines, institutions, and career stages. The contributors share personal observations on how The Slow Professor has influenced their teaching, research, and practices over the past ten years, adding nuance, insight, and practical examples to the ongoing relevance of the Slow movement within academic life.
As pressures of corporatization and efficiency continue to intensify, this anniversary edition reemphasizes the urgent need to confront and counter the culture of speed and promote more sustainable, meaningful ways of working. The Slow Professor, Tenth Anniversary Edition is a must-read for new and returning readers in academia concerned about the frantic pace of contemporary university life.
This edition includes the full original text, a foreword by Stefan Collini, a new introduction, and sixteen contributions from academics and professionals across disciplines, institutions, and career stages. The contributors share personal observations on how The Slow Professor has influenced their teaching, research, and practices over the past ten years, adding nuance, insight, and practical examples to the ongoing relevance of the Slow movement within academic life.
As pressures of corporatization and efficiency continue to intensify, this anniversary edition reemphasizes the urgent need to confront and counter the culture of speed and promote more sustainable, meaningful ways of working. The Slow Professor, Tenth Anniversary Edition is a must-read for new and returning readers in academia concerned about the frantic pace of contemporary university life.
Reviews / Votes
"The Slow Professor is the single most necessary salve for the frazzled, fractured, bruised, and broken educator trying to do their best in the increasingly inhospitable landscape of the modern university. I need all my friends - hell, my enemies, too - to read this book!" -- Emma Rees, Director, Institute of Gender Studies and Professor, Communication, Screen and Performance, University of Chester, U.K. "Maggie Berg and Barbara Seeber's book defines an ethics for teachers and researchers. This anniversary edition is more relevant than ever: a university without a sense of belonging and care for its community is a university without a purpose, at risk of becoming obsolete." -- Julien Lefort-Favreau, Associate Professor of French Studies, Queen's University "Marking the 10-year anniversary of Berg and Seeber's influential The Slow Professor (2016), this new edition offers fresh insights into the value of intentionality in academic life- - emphasizing the importance of taking time for reflection, dialogue, and deliberate action. New essays from contributing authors provide compelling, real-world examples that illustrate and deepen these enduring ideas." -- Matthew Fifolt, Associate Professor, Department of Health Policy & Organization and Director, Survey Research Unit, University of Alabama at Birmingham "While academicians are mostly attracted to a life of reading, discussion, and imparting knowledge, our lives have evolved into an ongoing rat race of increased teaching schedules, committee meetings, fund raising, grant deadlines, student recommendation, compliance paperwork, and more. Berg and Seeber remind us of our initial calling and suggest applying principles of the 'slow' movement to academic life." -- Daniel Liechty, Emeritus Professor of Human Development, Illinois State UniversityMore details
Edition
Second Edition
Language
English
Place of publication
Toronto
Canada
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Edition type
New edition
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 221 mm
Width: 144 mm
Thickness: 21 mm
Weight
368 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4875-5946-5 (9781487559465)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Maggie Berg is Emeritus Professor of English at Queen's University. She has published, and continues to write, on the novels of the Bronte sisters. She won five teaching awards during her career at Queen's including the W.J. Barnes Award for Teaching Excellence three times, the Chancellor A. Charles Baillie Award for Teaching Excellence, and a University Chair in Teaching and Learning. In recognition of The Slow Professor, she was awarded an honorary doctorate at the University of Mons, Belgium.
Barbara K. Seeber is Professor of English at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario. She is the author of Jane Austen and Animals as well as General Consent in Jane Austen. Her teaching areas are eighteenth-century literature and animal studies, and she is the recipient of the Brock Faculty of Humanities Award for Excellence in Teaching. Most recently, in recognition of The Slow Professor, she was awarded an honorary doctorate at the University of Mons, Belgium.
Barbara K. Seeber is Professor of English at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario. She is the author of Jane Austen and Animals as well as General Consent in Jane Austen. Her teaching areas are eighteenth-century literature and animal studies, and she is the recipient of the Brock Faculty of Humanities Award for Excellence in Teaching. Most recently, in recognition of The Slow Professor, she was awarded an honorary doctorate at the University of Mons, Belgium.
Content
Introduction to the Anniversary Edition
Acknowledgements
Part I: The Slow Professor 2016 Edition
Foreword
Preface
Introduction
1. Time Management and Timelessness
2. Pedagogy and Pleasure
3. Research and Understanding
4. Collegiality and Community
Conclusion: Collaboration and Thinking Together
Acknowledgments
Works Cited
Index
?
Part II: Slow Resets
The Application of Slow Principles: The Musings of a Social Work Academic
Andrew Mantulak
Slow is More: Teaching and Learning Collaboratively
Lynn Yau
Reclaiming the University as a Place where we Belong
Emma Farrell and Shane D. Bergin
Attributing Human Beings: Resistance through Relationships
Nancy L. Chick
A Weaving Together of Ideas
Jennifer Davis
Playing with Fire: The Art of Being a Slow Professor
Heather Evans
The Slow Professor and the Slow Graduate Student
Chris M. Golde and Jeffrey Schwegman
On Embracing Wellness: My Journey to Crafting Habits for Work and Well-being in Academia
M. Brielle Harbin
Higher Vibrations in Higher Education: Starting with Stillness, Slowness, and Intention
Samantha M. Harden
Slow Knowing and Teaching is a Common Cause
Libuse Heczkova and Josef Sebek
Thinking Together through Slowness, Criptime, and Access Thievery
Chelsea Temple Jones and Kimberlee Collins
Reclaiming the Public Intellectual in an Era of the Research-Industrial Complex
Michael Laver
Slowness and Fragmented Me
Heather A. Smith
Strange Bedfellows: Slowness, Sickness, and Scholarly 'Me Time'
Sara Ashencaen Crabtree
Finding Slow in Academic Libraries
Laurie Morrison
The Labyrinth Project: Resisting the Culture of Speed in the Academy (one step at a time!)
Jill Grose
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgements
Part I: The Slow Professor 2016 Edition
Foreword
Preface
Introduction
1. Time Management and Timelessness
2. Pedagogy and Pleasure
3. Research and Understanding
4. Collegiality and Community
Conclusion: Collaboration and Thinking Together
Acknowledgments
Works Cited
Index
?
Part II: Slow Resets
The Application of Slow Principles: The Musings of a Social Work Academic
Andrew Mantulak
Slow is More: Teaching and Learning Collaboratively
Lynn Yau
Reclaiming the University as a Place where we Belong
Emma Farrell and Shane D. Bergin
Attributing Human Beings: Resistance through Relationships
Nancy L. Chick
A Weaving Together of Ideas
Jennifer Davis
Playing with Fire: The Art of Being a Slow Professor
Heather Evans
The Slow Professor and the Slow Graduate Student
Chris M. Golde and Jeffrey Schwegman
On Embracing Wellness: My Journey to Crafting Habits for Work and Well-being in Academia
M. Brielle Harbin
Higher Vibrations in Higher Education: Starting with Stillness, Slowness, and Intention
Samantha M. Harden
Slow Knowing and Teaching is a Common Cause
Libuse Heczkova and Josef Sebek
Thinking Together through Slowness, Criptime, and Access Thievery
Chelsea Temple Jones and Kimberlee Collins
Reclaiming the Public Intellectual in an Era of the Research-Industrial Complex
Michael Laver
Slowness and Fragmented Me
Heather A. Smith
Strange Bedfellows: Slowness, Sickness, and Scholarly 'Me Time'
Sara Ashencaen Crabtree
Finding Slow in Academic Libraries
Laurie Morrison
The Labyrinth Project: Resisting the Culture of Speed in the Academy (one step at a time!)
Jill Grose
Notes on Contributors