Imagining the university

Ronald Barnett Invited seminar, Ljubljana, February, 2012r.barnett@ioe.ac.uk

Centre for Higher Education Studies

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This talk

• ‘Imagining the University’

- an examination of the idea itself• What is it to imagine the university?• What are the forms of the imagination – in imagining the university?• What is the role of/ the possibilities for the imagination?

- and its limitations• What is its structure

– And what is its prospects?

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A missing imagination?

Starting reflection: that the current debate as to the idea of the university is hopelessly impoverished

Dominated by considerations of the market, competition, customerisation, ‘knowledge-for-sale’, audit, regulation ..

3 tacit (or not so tacit) ideas: The Entrepreneurial University The Corporate University The Bureaucratic university

A dominant discourse NB – tensions here; perhaps even spaces.

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Hopelessly impoverished?

• Impoverished since– Narrow, dominant

• Lacking considerations of global and even personal wellbeing; or even possibility

• Lacking a care for the potential of the university – and the challenges upon the university – in the C12

• But also ‘hopelessly’ – lacking hope; visions of the future– Hope that things could come out better for the university– Or even differently, in fundamental ways

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Undue pessimism

• NB: pessimism not without its merits – (Joshua Dienstag)• But unremitting bleakness even within much contemporary scholarship

– ‘Commodification’– ‘Neo-liberalism’– ‘Quality regimes’– ‘Managerialism’– ‘Performativity’– ‘The regulative/ evaluative state’

• Not undue optimism • Believe matters could go better – grounded optimism• Positive possibilism• But what is possible? Not likely but possible

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Feasible utopias

• Identifying possibilities• Not neutral • But value-laden• Utopian – probably will not be reached• But not out of reach• Already instances embryonically visible• Empirical warrant (G&D)• A muted pessimism - things could go better

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A critical project of the imagination

• Large role for the imagination• Concept of ‘the imaginary’• Taylor – building on traditions, collective sediments• Kearney – imagination based on narratives; a psycho-phenomenology

of the imagination• Sartre – more one of building the future; of willing the future

– A strike for freedom• A critical project – identified shortcomings in the present

– Articulation of imaginative concepts - critical standards

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Responsible anarchism

• The imagination and responsibility: a complex set of relationships

• The imagination should, firstly, be anarchic; it should fly, unconstrained, to envision new possibilities and to find a new language (new ‘conceptual grammars’ – Morley)– Guided by responsibility, responsiveness to counter-values, new ideas are created,

imagined; searching for a poetry of the university

• But then this imagination needs to be restrained by ‘responsibility’ in/to the real world: head in the clouds and feet on the ground– The anarchic imagination has to be responsible; even poets have to live in the real

world• (This amounts to an exercise in ‘imaginative critical realism’ – being real and being critical

but also being imaginative.)

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(Some) Ideas of the university

The metaphysical universityThe research universityThe entrepreneurial universityThe neoliberal universityThe postmodern universityThe bureaucratic universityThe networked universityThe liquid universityThe therapeutic universityThe soulless universityThe ecological universityNB: the formal structure of each phrase is the same – but they vary considerably in their imaginative weight.

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Imagining the university

• The romantic imagination• The empirical imagination• The ideological imagination• The hopeful imagination• The dystopian imagination• The utopian imagination

– ie reaching towards a structure of the imagination; And a layered structure at that.

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The romantic imagination

• The metaphysical university• The liberal university• The civic university• The service university• The research university

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The empirical imagination

• The bureaucratic university• The corporate university• The marketised university• The commodified university• The capitalist university• The performative university

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The ideological imagination

• The entrepreneurial university – (The enterprise university)

• The accessible university (the ‘open’ university)• The European university• The global university• The postmodern university

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The hopeful imagination

• The borderless university• The networked university• The liquid university [Bauman]• The supercomplex university• The therapeutic university• The edgeless university (Bradwell)

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The dystopian imagination

• The soulless university• The subservient university• The selfish university• The self-important university

NB Problem – the dystopian university has already arrived (the ideological and the actual)

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Ideas of the university – a framework (3 axes)1 Endorsing – Critical

2 Surface – Deep

3 Pessimism – Optimism

eg‘Entrepreneurial University’ – endorsing/ deep/ optimistic

‘Edgeless University’ – critical/ surface/ optimistic

‘Capitalistic University’ – critical/ deep/ pessimistic

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Critical questions – and a challenge

• Can we find/ identify/ imagine ideas and forms of the university that do not succumb unduly to ideology?– After all, ‘We cannot jump out of our psychological and sociological skins’ (Gellner)

• Can we avoid undue pessimism on the one hand, and seduction by ‘the self-images of the age’ (MacIntyre) on the other hand?

• - and so we return to our initial hope/ idea of ‘feasible utopias’

Challenge – is that of imaginative ideas that are critical/ deep/ & optimistic- This is where feasible utopias would be found- Is there space for such ideas to be realised in the twenty-first century?- Or has the space for the university so shrunk that such ideas (even if they could be

forthcoming) could not be realised?

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The utopian imagination

• The anarchic university/ the iconoclastic university• The authentic university• The dialogical university• The ecological university• The perverse university• The public university (Masschelein/ Simons)• The socialist university (Peters)• The foolish university (Kavanagh)• The wise university (Maxwell)• The virtuous university (Nixon)• The theatrical university (Parker)

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Criteria of adequacy

- Range (theory/ ideas/ practice/ policy)- Depth (structures/ experience/ ideas)- Feasibility (power/ organization)- Ethics (flourishing – human/ organizational/ societal/ global)- Continuing possibilities/ emergent properties

Severe tests, but they will extend imaginative ideas

- and help to provide a legitimation of the imagination

- supplying potency and efficaciousness to the imagination

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The Ecological University(or: Prospects of/ for the imagination)[A case study]• Sees itself within and as part of a global ecology • Does what it can to enable the world to flourish (not just to ‘sustain’ it)• Has a care/ concern (H) for the world• Is active/ is engaged with the world; reaches into the world• Puts its knowledges to work in the interests of the world

This imaginary university passes muster against all of the tests of adequacy (previous slide)

- of range, depth, feasibility, ethics and possible emergence.

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Conclusion

We need to imagine the university anew (The imagination is prior to the imaginary)

We need lots of imaginative ideas – and daring, bold thinking;

identifying the best in all possible worlds: ie, utopian thinking But there is a responsibility on the imagination – to identify feasible

ideas of the university – ie, feasible utopias Feasible utopias are neither unduly optimistic nor unduly pessimistic

- but hold out critical standards against which to test emerging ‘universities’

and to steer us towards positive possibilities – positive possibilism. The university just could help us towards a better world – The imagination isn’t a sufficient condition – but it is a necessary condition.

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