Introducing: Academia in a Neoliberal World

This set of articles will foreground themes which are not always prioritised in discussions about academia.

by Kurt Borg

 

I wander in and around universities a lot, particularly in Malta, where I write this. Probably more than I should or than is healthy for me. I wake up and travel to a university every weekday and sometimes even in weekends; I work there, I eat and drink lots of teas and coffees, I teach there, and I am doing a PhD at another university. I attend lectures, seminars and conferences frequently. I read, research and write at the university; I’ve missed way too many dawns and dusks because I’d be stuck or willingly locked in a corner at the university. It is safe to assume that universities occupy a huge portion of my life. A significant part of my social life happens at a university; I developed dear friendships at the university, and a few antipathies too. I think a lot in the university. And I think a lot about the university, and about the activities that I do or happen at the university. Which is why I am writing this.

A lot of important theoretical stuff has been written about universities, by theorists like Jacques Derrida and Bill Readings. A lot of articles, less theoretical but no less important, are written on a daily basis, as a quick search on The Guardian or the whole of The Times Higher Education would attest. Universities are called a bunch of things: ivory towers, microcosms of society, and murderers of free speech because of their obsession with political correctness (PC). The University of Malta, in turn, has also been called an array of things, from a brilliant institution to a monopoly, both terms used by the current Prime Minister. Different people have radically different understandings of universities and academic work in general. I can very easily imagine one of those “what I/ friends/family/society think I am doing” images about university – something like this. While certain characterisations (or judgements) ring truer than others, it’s often the case that debates about academia tend to descend into black-or-white thinking without recognising that, say, the “ivory tower” question or the PC debates are more complex and diversified than is often believed.

This proposed set of articles is meant as a series of reflections on academic work in a neoliberal world. It is not assumed that academia is one homogeneous thing, and neither is neoliberalism or a neoliberal world. It treats academia and neoliberalism as disparate and diverse conglomerates. There is no one thing that is academia as such. Academic practices and initiatives happen within as well as outside lecture rooms, in books as well as in other forms of publishing, and irrespective of publishing. Similarly, neoliberalism is not being considered as a unitary system of economic thought, but as a set of practices that pervade all spheres of our lives: how we act, how we present ourselves, how we think, how we consume.

This set of articles will be eclectic and, most probably, erratic. It will deal with most facets of academia and academic life. It will consider the roles of universities, academics and students in a democracy. It will ask questions on how universities can foster spaces conducive to critical thought that informs society in general. It will navigate through the contemporary state of academia, asking questions on how research is valued or funded (or not). It will seek to reveal and understand different ways in which academia and neoliberalism interact, oftentimes with disastrous effects.

This set of articles will foreground themes which are not always prioritised in discussions about academia. For example, what questions can be posed about universities that thrive with exorbitant tuition fees while at the same time employing some of its staff with precarious and short-term contracts (some numbers and figures here)? Another immensely pertinent issue that this set of articles will deal with is the effect of academic work on mental health. Why is and what is it about the contemporary form of academia that is pushing students, PhD candidates and academics to their emotional and mental limits? Rather than placing the blame on individual’s failures to deal with and negotiate stressful times, this set of articles will raise questions that place responsibility on the structural conditions that are bearing on contemporary academic life. In short, I will be placing responsibility on “the system” instead of on the backs of academic workers.

This set of articles will raise questions on the effect that the pace of our social reality has on us – a fast-tempo pace where everything feels accelerated and so uncontrollably fast, from our breakfast to our dinner, from our reading to our thinking to our writing. This column will look into the state of the contemporary academic publishing world. Who owns journals? What extra-academic forces impact significantly on what kind of work is published; and how and why are academics altering the way or content of their research to fit neatly into the mass production of academic papers adjudicated by neoliberal metrics? What does this state of affairs reflect on what kind of subjects (i.e. us) are being produced by this system?

This set of articles will raise questions on the effect that the pace of our social reality has on us – a fast-tempo pace where everything feels accelerated and so uncontrollably fast.

 

If all this is sounding a bit too “iron cage” and gloomy, despair not. Leftist critical work is not (or so this column suggests) equivalent to incessant rambling or grumbling. The point here is not to decry the sorry state which academia is in. If there’s one thing that this set of articles hopes to put forward is that academia, just like the world at large, could be otherwise. There are various spaces that could accommodate this otherwise. These alternatives include macro-techniques such as open access publishing or initiatives where academics take the publishing process in their hands, both in form (i.e. by producing accessible material) and in content (i.e. by curating book series of research that wouldn’t be easily accepted by the so-called giants of the academic publishing world). These alternatives also include the kind of conferences and academic events that are organised, as well as the methods of teaching, reading and writing adopted and encouraged.

Alternatives include also a degree of self-reflexivity by academics and academics-to-be on the social and economic conditions enabling the current state of academic work and employment, and to openly and critically discuss such matters. On a more micro-level, alternatives include friendships, alliances and solidarity among academic workers, a theme which will recur in this series of articles.

Academia in a Neoliberal World will be sporadic and erratic – it will include personal reflections, reviewing of other work in this area, giving exposure to initiatives battling the destructive effects of neoliberal academia, interviews with individuals at (or beyond) the margins of academia, and other formats. What will be unwavering in this series is the commitment to preserve the virtues of critical work of thought and its intimate relation to social action.