John Holmwood
19 January 2016
Abstract:
The ‘provoking cause’ of this lecture is the neo-liberal reconstruction of the university that is occurring across different national contexts, but perhaps especially in the UK and US. Whereas the university was previously understood as fulfilling multiple functions, public policy now addresses only its contribution to economic growth and human capital. Moreover, these are now associated with widening inequalities and inheritance of wealth and social position that has returned to levels last seen at the end of the nineteenth century. The lecture will suggest that the university has shifted from being at the service of democracy to being at the service of markets such that the university is now part of a democratic deficit at the heart of neo-liberalism.
Speaker:
Professor John Holmwood is Professor of Sociology at the University of Nottingham, a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, and was President of the British Sociological Association (2012-2014). He is also co-founder of the Campaign for the Public University and of Discover Society, a free online magazine of social commentary, research and policy analysis. During the academic year 2014-15 he was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, participating in a programme on Egalitarianisms.
The David Watson Memorial Lecture Series, 2015 – 2016, What Should Universities Be?
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