Thursday, 21 March 2019 at 6:00 pm – Thursday, 21 March 2019 at 8:00 pm
Thomas Docherty – Can The University Survive?
Date: Thursday 21st March 2019
Time: 6pm
Location: International Anthony Burgess Foundation
Tickets: FREE - Available on Eventbrite here.
The university is under threat. For forty years this indispensable democratic institution has been systematically betrayed by governments and the political class, who have redirected it from its proper social and cultural functions through a relentless programme of financialisation.
Taking his cue from Julien Benda’s classic polemical essay, Thomas Docherty, author of ‘The New Treason of the Intellectuals‘, exposes the forces behind modern university ‘reform’. He demonstrates that the sector has been politicised and now works explicitly to advance a market-fundamentalist ideology that drives an ever-widening wedge between ordinary citizens and the privileged and wealthy. Against this, the intellectual and the university have an urgent duty to extend democracy and social justice.
Looking to the future, Docherty concludes the book with seven hypotheses towards a manifesto and calls on intellectuals everywhere to assist in the survival of the species.
Thomas Docherty is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Warwick. He will discuss the issues raised in his book with Andrew Biswell, Professor of Modern Literature at Manchester Metropolitan University.
Andrew has taught English and Creative Writing at the Manchester Metropolitan University since 2003. His academic work is spread across a variety of media. This includes book publications with academic and commercial publishers, exhibitions, broadcasting for television and radio, articles for newspapers and literary journals, and electronic publication of research materials. He is the editor and annotator of the digital edition of A Clockwork Orange: The Restored Text, available for iPad via the Apple store. The electronic edition is published by Random House Digital. The print edition is published by William Heinemann (UK hardback), W.W. Norton (US hardback) and Penguin Classics (UK and Commonwealth paperback). Current projects include a scholarly edition of the works of Anthony Burgess for Manchester University Press, and a book about British writers of the 1930s.