Academic Barbarism, Universities and Inequality [Paperback]

The image of the university is tarnished: this book examines how recent philosophies of education, new readings of its economics, new technologies affecting research and access, and contemporary novelists' representations of university life all describe a global university that has given up on its promise of greater educational equality.

The image of the university is tarnished: this book examines how recent philosophies of education, new readings of its economics, new technologies affecting research and access, and contemporary novelists' representations of university life all describe a global university that has given up on its promise of greater educational equality.

1. Introduction

2. Academic Barbarism: Practice and Transmission

3. Academic Barbarism, Universities and Inequality

4. Academic Barbarism and the Literature of Concealment: Roberto Bola?o and W. G. Sebald

5. Aaron Swartz, New Technologies and The Myth of Open Access

6. Academic Barbarism and the Asian University: The Case of Hong Kong

7. Conclusion

Michael O'Sullivan is Associate Professor in English at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He has worked for universities in Ireland, the UK, the US, Japan and Hong Kong. He has published widely in education, literary studies and philosophy.

The image of the university is tarnished: economists argue that modern universities foster 'meritocratic extremism'; educationalists say they perpetuate inequality; novelists describe for us the 'barbaric rituals' of academics and philosophers say universities are engaged in 'practices of barbarism'. This book examines how these aspects of the modern university have transformed its educational philosophy and modes of transmission to the extent that the university fosters a form of academic barbarism. New theories of barbarism havelc&