Media piece: "Taking Back the University", The Guardian

A quick post to mark the publication, co-authored with Jennifer M Jones, of "Taking Back the University"; a piece that gives a quick rundown of radical alternative re-imaginings of the University over the past year.

The piece was written collaboratively in Google Documents originally under the title "Angry Young Academics", with each of us blasting down thoughts before restructuring. Once we had reached a point where we felt satisfied, we began negotiating with The Guardian. Much of the material from the original had to go. This is fair enough; a mainstream media outlet has to cater for its audience. We would like, though, probably in a few weeks, to release the unadulterated "directors' cut" version, so keep your eyes peeled.

Anyway, here's a teaser:

Whenever university radicalisation is condemned, it should be remembered that radicalism is partially the purpose of the university. It has long been among the core functions of the university to reconsider the self-explanatory. "Radical", a return to the beginning, comes from radicalis, meaning "of roots". This radicalism is evident: as atomism was validated by 17th and 18th century chemistry, shattering all that seemed solid into (predominantly) air, other fields realised that they too must be radical.

You can read the rest over at the Guardian Higher Education Network.

Featured image by Daniel2005 under a CC-BY license.

Media piece: "Taking Back the University", The Guardian was originally published by Martin Paul Eve at eve.gd: Martin Paul Eve on June 15, 2011.