The Toxic University: Zombie Leadership, Academic Rock Stars and Neoliberal Ideology [Paperback]

This book considers the detrimental changes that have occurred to the institution of the university, as a result of the withdrawal of state funding and the imposition of neoliberal market reforms on higher education. It argues that universities have lost their way, and are currently drowning in an impenetrable mush of economic babble, spurious spin-offs of zombie economics, management-speak and militaristic-corporate jargon. John Smyth provides a trenchant and excoriating analysis of how universities have enveloped themselves in synthetic and meaningless marketing hype, and explains what this has done to academic work and the culture of universities  specifically, how it has degraded higher education and exacerbated social inequalities among both staff and students. Finally, the book explores how we might commence a reclamation. It should be essential reading for students and researchers in the fields of education and sociology, and anyone interested in the current state of universitymanagement. Chapter 1. Introduction: 'Getting an Academic Life'.- Chapter 2. Neoliberalism: An Alien Interloper in Higher Education.- Chapter 3. Why the 'Toxic' University? A Case of Two Very Different Academics.- Chapter 4. Why Zombie Leadership?.- Chapter 5. Cultivation of the 'Rock Star' Academic Researcher?.- Chapter 6. The University as an Instrument of 'Class'.- Chapter 7. The 'Cancer Stage of Capitalism' in Universities.- Chapter 8. Enough is Enough... of this Failed Experiment of Killing the Host.- Chapter 9. Get Off My Bus! The Reversal of What We have been Doing in Universities.

It is a must read for all of us in the academy, both old and new, and should be required reading within university leadership development programming as he invites us to think outside of the prevailing tide of neoliberalism and encourages us to become positive social reconstructionist in our thinking and activities. (Shelleyann Scott, Journal of Educl£9