Higher Education Discourse and Deconstruction
Challenging the Case for Transparency and Objecthood
Published on 21. July 2018
Book
Paperback/Softback
XI, 95 pages
978-3-319-85030-6 (ISBN)
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.
Reviews / Votes
"Cocks's compelling argument is that when the aim of those critics is to free theory from the tyranny of subjectivity, we are in for a new tyranny: that of the self-evident. This book's sustained plea to still engage with both irredeemable textuality and the excessiveness of subjectivity should be mandatory reading for scholars and their managers." (Jan de Vos, University of Ghent, Belgium)"This astonishing and necessary book neatly dismantles discourses of transparency in contemporary education, and reflexively interrogates ostensibly radical responses to the various ways scholars in the university sector are monitored and undermined. Neil Cocks provides invaluable ammunition for those who really do want to defend academic space. His book is an argument for and exemplar of good critical textual practice." (Ian Parker, Emeritus Professor of Management, University of Leicester, UK)
More details
Series
Edition
Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 2017
Language
English
Place of publication
Cham
Switzerland
Publishing group
Springer International Publishing
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
XI, 95 p.
Dimensions
Height: 21 cm
Width: 14.8 cm
Weight
1507 gr
ISBN-13
978-3-319-85030-6 (9783319850306)
DOI
10.1007/978-3-319-52983-7
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Neil Cocks
Higher Education Discourse and Deconstruction
Challenging the Case for Transparency and Objecthood
Book
03/2017
Palgrave Macmillan
€58.84
Shipment within 10-15 days
Person
Neil Cocks is Lecturer in English and American Literature at the University of Reading, UK. His research interests include nineteenth century literature, children's literature, psychoanalysis, and visual culture.
Content
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.