Academic diary : or why higher education still matters / Les Back.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Back, Les, 1962- author.

Series:

Goldsmiths Press

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Education, Higher.

Universities and colleges.

Education, Higher--Social aspects.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (273 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Distribution:

Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press, [date of distribution not identified]

Place of Publication:

Cambridge The MIT Press 2016

London, [England] : Goldsmiths Press, 2016.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Sharp and witty observations of academic life that range from the local to the global, from PowerPoint to the halls of power. Is a university education still relevant? What are the forces that threaten it? Should academics ever be allowed near Twitter? In Academic Diary, Les Back has chronicled three decades of his academic career, turning his sharp and often satirical eye to the everyday aspects of life on campus and the larger forces that are reshaping it. Presented as a collection of entries from a single academic year, the diary moves from the local to the global, from PowerPoint to the halls of power. With entries like “Ivory Towers” and “The Library Angel,” these smart, humorous, and sometimes absurd campus tales not only demystify the opaque rituals of scholarship but also offer a personal perspective on the far-reaching issues of university life. Commenting on topics that range from the impact of commercialization and fee increases to measurement and auditing research, the diary offers a critical analysis of higher education today. At the same time, it is a passionate argument for the life of the mind, the importance of collaborative thinking, and the reasons that scholarship and writing are still vital for making sense of our troubled and divided world.

Contents:

Intro

Contents

Introduction: Academic Time

Autumn Term

10 September: Graduation

15 September: Everyone Has a Teacher Story

17 September: Letter to a New Student

20 September: Welcome Week

25 September: Goldsmiths and its District

27 September: Ratology

28 September: Students Not Suspects

7 October: Open Day

12 October: Stuart Hall Lessons

25 October: Teaching

31 October: The Uses of Literacy Today

5 November: Death by PowerPoint

8 November: The Value in Academic Writing

20 November: Research Expenses

27 November: Extra Curricular

29 November: College Green

3 December: Meeting John Berger

9 December: An Education of Sorts

10 December: Class Mobility

17 December: Bourdieu Behind Bars

29 December: New Year's Honours

Spring Term

10 January: The Diary Disease

16 January: Remembering Paul

18 January: Recognition

25 January: Holding the Fort

5 February: Academic Uses and Abuses of Twitter

12 February: Generosity as a Strategy for Survival

26 February: Professionals and Amateurs

7 March: Reading and Remembering

10 March: Campus Watch

15 March: Writing Routines and the Torture of Starting

21 March: That Special Pen

1 April: Viral Warning

10 April: Ivory Towers

16 April: Conference Etiquette

19 April: Academic Rights

20 April: Casts of Minds

27 April: The Devil You Know

2 May: Supervision

9 May: Thinking Together

16 May: The Doublethink of Open Access

20 May: Against Intellectual Suicide

The Summer

7 June: Silence Please - Exam in Progress

9 June: The Exam Board

14 June: On the Occasion of Retirement

20 June: The Writer's Desk

30 June: The Library Angel

4 July: The PhD Viva

17 July: Writing and Scholastic Style

24 July: 'And What Do You Do for a Living . . .?'

19 August: Primo Levi's House.

31 August: Lost Notebook

Afterword:How the Diary Came to Be Written in the First Place

Tips, Leads and Follow-Ups

Universities in changing times

Campus fictions

Students, learning and teaching

On writing and writers

Intellectual life and its purpose

Heroes and heroines

Music as a hinterland.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-906897-56-5

1-906897-59-X

Access Restriction:

Open access Unrestricted online access