By Jana Bacevic One of my favourite texts back from the time when I was writing my Master’s thesis is the Situationist International’s On The Poverty of Student Life (De la misère au milieu étudiant). Written in 1966 and distributed in 10.000… Read More ›
Higher Education 
Boundaries and barbarians: ontological (in)security and the [cyber?] war on universities
By Jana Bacevic Prologue One Saturday in late January, I go to the PhD office at the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge’s New Museums site (yes, PhD students shouldn’t work on Saturdays, and yes, we do). I… Read More ›
The ‘marketplace of ideas’ and the future of academic social media
A really interesting Google Hangout discussion. I’ll be taking part in a follow up later this month:
The Digital University in a Neoliberal Age
The Digital University in a Neoliberal Age Speakers: Jana Bacevic, Mark Carrigan, Gary Hall, and Liz Morrish Wednesday 8th November 2017, 1-6 PM Register (for free) here 1 – 1.30 reception and buffet lunch 1.30 – 2.30 Gary Hall – ‘Data Commonism versus ÜberCapitalism… Read More ›
Agnotology, Science and Public Engagement
One of the clear themes which emerged for me when reading Merchants of Doubt, a detailed exploration of corporate propaganda by historians of science Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, concerns the politics of public engagement. What might in other circumstances seem like anodyne… Read More ›
The University Without Academics, by @johnbrissenden
by John Brissenden In September 2027, England’s first super-universities opened their doors to students. Of course, these doors were as much virtual as physical, since the majority of students studied entirely remotely, from around the world. But the defining feature… Read More ›
On the Spiralists
In a recent editorial in Current Sociology, Michael Burawoy warns about what he describes as the ascent of the spiralists. He finds these figures throughout the UC Berekely administration, accusing them of being “people who spiral in from outside, develop signature… Read More ›
Trolling, public engagement and the sociology of knowledge
In recent months, I’ve become preoccupied by how we make sense of the experiences of academics being harassed or trolled when using social media. My initial interest in this was in my capacity as a trainer and consultant. One of… Read More ›
Help us forge UK applied sociology
Help us forge UK applied sociology by Nick Fox and Marguerite Regan For the past 18 months, the British Sociological Association (BSA) group Sociologists outside Academia (SOA) has been focusing on the potential for careers working as applied or practical… Read More ›
The Political Economy of Student Housing
In the last few years, I’ve been intrigued by how changes in student housing track a broader transformation of higher education. The obvious change in the UK has been in student numbers, with major implications for the demographics of cities… Read More ›
Universities, neoliberalisation, and the (im)possibility of critique
By Jana Bacevic Last Friday in April, I was at a conference entitled Universities, neoliberalisation and (in)equality at Goldsmiths, University of London. It was an one-day event featuring presentations and interventions from academics who work on understanding, and criticising, the… Read More ›
What’s the difference between academia and politics?
In his wonderful memoir, Adults In The Room, Yanis Varoufakis reflects on the frustrations of politics and how they compare to academia. From loc 5504: Possibly because of my academic background, this was the Brussels experience I least expected and found most frustrating…. Read More ›
CfP: Online Othering: Exploring the Dark Side of the Web
Call for Papers – Edited Collection Online Othering: Exploring the Dark Side of the Web Editors: Dr Karen Lumsden (Loughborough University) and Dr Emily Harmer (University of Liverpool) The Internet plays a vital role in many aspects of our social,… Read More ›
Adventures in Peer Review Land: The Micro-structure of Academic Intellectual Property Transfer
I serve on the editorial board of several journals. In one such journal, the custom is to circulate all the articles that passed the external review process so that the board can officially give its approval for publication. We get… Read More ›
The Liberated Mathematician Stands Up to Gender and Race Inequality in Academia
This week, Dr. Piper Harron, mathematics professor based at the University of Hawaii, and a vocal feminist and supporter of under-represented groups in the academic mathematics community, published a provocative blogpost on the website of the AMS (American Mathematical Society), in… Read More ›
Public Engagement and Social Media
There’s a really important piece in the LSE Impact Blog by Philip Moriarty describing his experiences using social media for public engagement. In many ways he has been the embodiment of the engaged academic, driven by a sense of responsibility… Read More ›
Will social media lead to the return of the general intellectual?
In his detailed study of Sartre’s rise to prominence as an authoritative public intellectual, Patrick Baert argues that the general intellectualism embodied by Sartre depended upon social conditions which no longer obtain. Such intellectuals “address a wide range of subjects… Read More ›
What is a research technologist?
I described myself as an ‘academic technologist’ for a number of years. During my part-time PhD, I’d drifted into a number of roles which felt connected but which were difficult to summarise: training people to use NVIVO, writing digital scholarship resources, advising… Read More ›
The ennui of the academic celebrity
In Solar, by Ian McEwan, we encounter the weary figure of Michael Beard, the nobel laureate and serial womaniser who has long lived off his early contribution to theoretical physics. By the time he approaches his 60s, he is a… Read More ›
How can the social sciences keep up with socio-technical change?
At a recent symposium I saw Ben Williamson give an excellent lecture about the rapidly developing field of educational data science and how it is reshaping educational practice. Some of the material is summarised here for those interested. It was a really… Read More ›
Slavoj Žižek presents
It was only a matter of time really. A new front has just been opened in the Žižek publishing machine:
“A new kind of intellectual”: Pierre Bourdieu’s tribute to Michel Foucault
After Michel Foucault died in 1984 at the age of fifty-seven, Pierre Bourdieu wrote a tribute in Le Monde, reflecting on his life and what could be learned from it. Bourdieu attributed to his former colleague at the Collège de France a great… Read More ›
A Nobel Peace Prize for Sublimation
I originally wrote the following in October 2012, just after the European Union was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to the European Union makes the most sense when you consider the front-runners, which included Julian… Read More ›
The Morphology of Public Engagement
In recent weeks I’ve become fascinated by what I’ve thought of as the poetics of impact and engagement. What linguistic techniques can we identify in how ‘impact’ and ‘engagement’ are written about? What work do they do in terms of… Read More ›
Marketing the Digital University
In the excellent Lower Ed, Tressie McMillan Cottom reflects on the market-orientation of for-profit colleges, tending to seek a continual growth in student numbers. This growth imperative can manifest itself in marketing and recruitment outstripping teaching in institutional spending. From pg… Read More ›
Keeping the conversation going in an age of scholarly abundance
In the last few years, I’ve become increasingly preoccupied with the notion of ‘the literature’ and how it is invoked by scholars. I’m now rather sceptical of the way in which many people talk about ‘the literature’ and the role it plays… Read More ›
Public engagement, social media and university boundaries
In her wonderful Lower Ed, Tressie Cottom describes how her public profile led to her being in contact with someone who was enormously relevant to her ongoing research. From pg 103: Aaron found me through my public writing and blogging… Read More ›
The Technology of Intellectual Work
In 1988 Pierre Bourdieu chaired a commission reviewing the curriculum at the behest of the minister of national education. The scope of the review was broad, encompassing a revision of subjects taught in order to strengthen the coherence and unity… Read More ›
The Uberfication of the University: the Digital Studienbuch and the 21st Century Privatdozent
In my copy of The Vocation Lectures, edited by David Owen and Tracy B. Strong, the editors helpfully annotate Weber’s description of the occupational realities of the German academic. From pg 2: German students used to have a Studienbuch, a notebook… Read More ›
The Central European University in Budapest Under Threat of Closure
by Giovanni Picker The Central European University (CEU) is an English-speaking, postgraduate private university in Budapest, Hungary, specialising in the humanities and social sciences. It was established in 1991 by, among others, George Soros, its most important donor. The university… Read More ›