Rethinking the University

Rethinking the University: Structure, Critique, Vocation is an attempt to escape the discursive ruts that characterize debates over higher education in the United Kingdom. It explores three distinct perspectives inspired by Kojin Karatani’s ‘triad of concepts’—instrumentalism, idealism, and community—which the author further develops trans-genealogically to open the way to a heterodox reading of the post-war British university. To deal with the co-existence of these three perspectives, this book focuses on the idea of vocation and concludes with a plea for a university oriented towards the future, engaged in the present, and grounded in an appreciation of the past.