Higher Education discourse and deconstruction: challenging the case for transparency and objecthood

Cocks, N. (2017) Higher Education discourse and deconstruction: challenging the case for transparency and objecthood. Palgrave Critical University Studies. Palgrave. ISBN 9783319529820 doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-52983-7

Abstract/Summary

Whilst the contention that Higher Education in the UK has been adversely affected by a managerial audit culture is familiar, the idea that a questioning analysis of this situation might be achieved through detailed textual engagement is less so. Indeed, a focus on textuality within a work of educational theory might seem in danger of shoring up a neo-liberal pedagogy premised on relativism and the rejection of truth. Counter to such concerns, this book argues that the textual encounter can help challenge the appearance of universities as ‘pure instances of communication’, the notion of a transparent language and culture that is central to what Bill Readings famously critiqued as ‘The University of Excellence’. (Readings, 1996) The work is in three chapters, each a close reading of a text that has a connection to contemporary HE discourse. In each, my interest is in questioning investment in objecthood and transparency.