Academic critique of neoliberal academia

Authors

  • Andrew Whelan University of Wollongong

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.11157/sites-vol12iss1id258

Keywords:

audit culture, neoliberalism, academic culture

Abstract

Academic texts running critiques of neoliberal capitalism do work: positioning and producing their authors, hailing and invoking their readers (particularly as subjects invested in the moral logic the critique establishes), and thereby, articulating and moralising the collaborative accomplishment of the reader-writer relation. This relation and its constitution is a feature of contemporary leftist academic culture, and of the mechanics of critique as a social or 'solidarising' form of writing/reading. Attending closely to it highlights some vulnerabilities of the academic critique of neoliberal forms of life, and can illuminate the extent to which this critique constitutes its object in problematic ways: in terms particularly of irreflexivity around the social effects or otherwise of critique as intellectual practice, and of the historical relations between academic practices and neoliberalism itself.

Author Biography

  • Andrew Whelan, University of Wollongong
    Andrew Whelan is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Wollongong in New South Wales. He has research interests in subculture, popular music, digital culture, social interaction and organization and social theory. He is co-editor of Zombies in the Academy: Living Death in Higher Education (2013), author of Breakcore: Identity and Interaction on Peer-to-Peer (2008), and has contributions in the edited collections Being Cultural (2011), Dichotonies (2009), and Cybersounds (2006). His current research is in two areas: how talk about music is conducted; and how institutional academic culture works. Dr. Andrew Whelan School of Humanities and Social Inquiry Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts University of Wollongong NSW 2522 Australia

Downloads

Published

15-12-2015

Issue

Vol. 12 No. 1 (2015)

Section

Articles

License

Copyright © in this published form is held by Sites: New Series, Association of Social Anthropologists of Aotearoa New Zealand, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Individual readers and non-profit libraries acting for them, are permitted to print or download a single copy of an article without charge for use in research or teaching. Permitted use includes providing a link to an article, or hosting a PDF article in online Learning Management Systems or E-Reserve Systems for authorised users. A single article may be used in print or online Course Packs. Interlibrary loan is permitted. New Zealand Copyright Law and Copyright Licensing New Zealand Education Licence provisions apply. This consent does not extend to other kinds of copying, such as copying for general distribution, for advertising or promotional purposes, for creating new collective works or for resale. For such uses, written permission is required. Write to the Editor: sites@otago.ac.nz

How to Cite

Academic critique of neoliberal academia. (2015). Sites: A Journal of Social Anthropology and Cultural Studies, 12(1), 130-152. https://doi.org/10.11157/sites-vol12iss1id258