Speaking of Universities

Globalization has transformed the economic horizon. At the same time governments have systematically imposed new regulations for funding, governance, and assessment. Increasingly, universities behave more like business enterprises in a commercial marketplace than centers of learning. In recent decades there has been an immense global surge in the number of universities and the size of the student population. Technology has created new ways of learning and teaching.

In Speaking of Universities, historian and critic Stefan Collini analyses these changes and challenges the assumptions of policymakers and commentators. This is an urgent call to “focus on what is actually happening and the clichés behind which it hides; an incitement to think again, think more clearly, and then to press for something better.”