<editorial board> <agu> The Double Crisis of the University and the Global Economy
Augusto Illuminati
augusto.illuminati at fastwebnet.it
Wed Dec 24 17:59:10 CET 2008
>thanks for this
>
>i have just one minor concern of a linguistic nature -
>
>does the continual use of the word crisis risk losing any sense for the
>word crisis
>
>there of course other words - cycle, process, phase...
>
>nirmal
>
> 2008 10:56 pm, info at edu-factory.org wrote:
>> The following are some brief notes to initiate discussion on
>> the proposed theme for a zero issue of the edu-factory journal. After some
>> off-list discussion, it has been suggested that the journal should be
>> titled Edu-Notes: Conflicts and Transformations of the University.
>>
>>
>> We would like to thank Augusto Illuminati and Nirmal Puwar
>> for their insightful contributions. The first point below is an attempt to
>> address the important comment made by Augusto regarding the term financial
>> crisis. We would also like to open discussion regarding Nirmals concern
>> about the possible narrowness of the proposed theme. By putting forward the
>> following points for discussion we hope that other members of the
>> editorial board can intervene regarding the appropriateness of the
>> suggested theme for the zero issue.
>>
>> Ned Rossiter has also made a key intervention regarding the
>> tricky question of peer review and quality control. Hopefully Neds
>> provocation can attract some serious discussion of this matter on the
>> list. We do not expect this is a question we will resolve quickly but it
>> is a crucial one to confront.
>>
>> In this message, however, we restrict ourselves to the
>> question of the zero issue, since the preparation of a call for papers,
>> which should be briefer than what is outlined below, is perhaps the most
>> urgent issue to confront.
>>
>>
>>
>> As starting point, the zero issue would investigate the
>> characteristics of the global crisis. In mainstream analysis, the current
>> economic situation is described as financial crisis. This idea is based on
>> the classical division between finance and real economy, which we want to
>> question. From this point of view, it is better to talk of a global
>> economic crisis.
>>
>> We would base this analysis of the crisis on the
>> investigation of material changes. What are the nature and the roots of the
>> crisis? How is the crisis likely to affect the production of knowledge and
>> the organization of such production around innovation?
>>
>> What does it mean to refer to the crisis as a global crisis?
>> What are the different forms of translation of the crisis in
>> various transnational contexts? How are academic employment, higher
>> education export, higher degree research recruitment or other aspects
>> affected?
>>
>> The focal point of the issue should be the nexus between the
>> global economic crisis and the crisis of the university. By the latter, we
>> refer to the end of the modern concept of the university and the permanent
>> crisis of its transition into the new framework.
>>
>> With regard to the university, this double crisis highlights
>> the difficulty of conducting an analysis in the classical terms of the
>> dialectic between public and private. The corporatization of the
>> university is not its privatization, but indicates that its new form
>> that is, the form of the crisis must be thought beyond the state/private
>> sector distinction.
>>
>> For instance, some articles could focus on the student debt
>> system as one of the roots of the contemporary crisis. Such an
>> investigation might approach the operations of the student debt system as
>> paradigmatic for a sort of financialization of the welfare system.
>>
>> It could be interesting to analyze the relationship between
>> universities and collateralised debt obligations. Institutional investors
>> such as pension funds, insurance houses and university endowment funds
>> were among the most important purchasers of these and other securitized
>> financial products. But they were also among the first to become wary of
> > such investments and thus their financial decisions contributed to the
>> onset of the crisis.
>>
>> Another question concerns the role of ranking systems in the
>> determination and evolution of the double crisis. The continued high
>> ranking of securitized debt products by bond rating houses like Moodys and
>> Standard and Poors contributed
>> to the onset of the economic crisis. The global ranking of universities by
>> institutions such as Shanghai Jiao Tong and Times Higher has become an
>> obsession in higher education. What are the relations and complicities
>> between such ranking systems?
>>
>> In this framework, there emerge two important questions. On
>> one hand, it is necessary to ask how the global economic crisis redefines
>> the crisis of the university. On the other hand, there is a need to
>> inquire into the place and role of conflicts in the nexus of this double
>> crisis.
>>
>> Finally, it would be interesting to discuss the temporality
>> of the crisis in relation to the temporality of the production of
>> knowledge. Does the traditional cycle outline, which poses
>> financialization as a final stage that follows an expansion of material
>> production, still apply? Or do we have to investigate a new temporality of
>> the crisis? What does this mean for the temporality of conflicts, which
>> have been understood to follow a cycle of struggles?
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/agu_listcultures.org
>>
>>
>
>
>Dr Nirmal Puwar
>Department of Sociology
>Goldsmiths, London University.
>Co-organiser of Methods Lab
>http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/methods-lab/
>
>
>
>
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Really, edu-notes is a little boring; may I suggest:
Edu-factory-tools or Edu-factory, a tool-box?
Augusto Illuminati
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Augusto Illuminati
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