Essays

Managerial fundamentalism has taken hold in universities, with scholars viewed as resources that must be controlled, argues the Warwick scholar

4 December

Scholarship can be a fearsome activity, as Chris Walsh discovered when he set out to investigate the figure of the coward

16 October

Today’s students are impoverished by a scant knowledge of culture and context, but the story of art should be a sine qua non of any well-rounded curriculum, argues Brian Sewell

23 May

Dale Salwak on the sudden realisation that knowledge of his subject had become intuitive understanding and lecture notes could be put aside when teaching

4 April

In our market-driven world, in which the ideals of common good are disappearing, Fred Inglis reminds us that it is the public universities that are in a pivotal position to protect our society

14 March

Artistic practice can certainly be research - but the present model in UK universities is confused and lacks intellectual rigour, argues Nicholas Till

For centuries Regius chairs were the gift of kings, tools of statecraft and the preserve of ancient universities. But that has changed, most recently with the addition of 12 new professorships, as Richard J. Evans relates

7 February

Regrets? They’ve had a few…but with the frustrations have come joys and satisfaction, too. Six scholars reveal what they wish they had known at the beginning of their careers and offer some sage advice to would-be professors

7 February

Miriam David’s reflections on her career as a scholar and feminist inspired her to interview a range of female academics about their paths to the getting of wisdom - and the pivotal role feminism has played in their lives

31 January

Scholarship has long been international but the current vision of a ‘worldwide’ academy of rootless student-consumers and national economic competition is as contradictory as it is immoral, argues Thomas Docherty

17 January

Toby Miller did not take a straight path into academia - far from it, having been, among other things, a DJ, a ditch digger, a speech-writer, a bureaucrat, a security guard and a merchant banker. He reflects on how his atypical trajectory shaped his views of the insular scholarly world

10 January

Ronald Barnett offers an imaginative approach to the idea of the university: ‘feasible utopias’ that open up possibilities for renewal beyond the dominant ideas of the market and the pessimistic reactions they elicit

3 January

Austerity has brought tragedy to Greece and the UK. Martin McQuillan reflects on the narrative and ideology of ‘fiscal discipline’ and what it means for both nations and their academies

3 January

Tom Palaima muses on truth’s troubled relationship to the tales we tell about the heart of war

20 December

Rejecting dire warnings that increasing competition in higher education will end in disaster, Paul Ramsden argues that the opposite could be true, but only if the sector is allowed to take charge of its own destiny

13 December

Learning outcomes are frequently dismissed as a nuisance to be dutifully completed and swiftly put aside, but Frank Furedi believes their prescriptive nature and underlying utilitarian ethos make them an altogether more corrosive influence on higher education

29 November

Read all about it: Fred Inglis on the horn-blowing and the hoopla, the cant and the can-do spirit of the glossy world of official university magazines

15 November

Next week, scholars will launch the Council for the Defence of British Universities. Historian Keith Thomas and astrophysicist Martin Rees, eminent founding members of the independent body, explain why they believe the academy requires protection from the state and the market

8 November

Genius and madness may be two sides of the same coin and both states exhibit ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking. Such unusual thought patterns are key to creativity but can also lead reason astray. Glenn Wilson takes a look at the psychology of minds at the margins

1 November

The tide of instrumentalism threatens to engulf the UK’s higher education sector, but could a new wave of liberal arts programmes signal a return to the ancient ideal of learning for its own sake? Nigel Tubbs hopes so

11 October

The Ivy League’s autonomy has allowed its members to conquer the world. The UK must loosen the reins on its universities and establish an equivalent, Terence Kealey argues

11 October

There was never a golden age in which academic values such as universalism and disinterestedness were not at risk, argues Bruce Macfarlane. But in an age of sponsorism and insecurity, all scholars must hold fast to the precepts that make our intellectual endeavours worthwhile

No stranger to broadcasting himself, Christopher Bigsby considers the rise of the public intellectual - halfway up a mountain, on a motorbike, quoting Aeschylus, coming to a telly near you

20 September

Despite being the father of modern computing, Alan Turing’s greatest impact on contemporary science may stem from his insights into altogether more complex hardware, argues Ray Dolan: the human brain

6 September

Tim Birkhead has been studying a single guillemot population for 40 years. Here he explains how such commitment provides insights that the three-year studies favoured by the research councils cannot hope to match

9 August

The government’s ruthless, distorted idea of ‘competition’ will impoverish the whole academy and everyone in it. Thomas Docherty muses on a prescient 40-year-old speech warning of the trap at the end of the rat race

31 May

Tom Palaima muses on the Greek ideal of reflective learning, his immigrant grandparents’ dreams of a better life, the GI Bill’s impact on America and the price of allowing universities - once places where thinking was not bound by arbitrary deadlines - to be debased into assembly lines

From Thoreau’s pond and Hawthorne’s gables to Hardy’s study and the Brontës’ moors: Dale Salwak draws on his own literary pilgrimages to open students’ eyes to the sense of place underpinning great literature

10 May

For the late Julia Swindells, radicalism and friendship were always intimately linked. Here, she describes the youthful influences that led her down a political path

19 April

He was driven to write an acclaimed debut novel in stolen hours, but lecturer, researcher and scholarly biographer Christopher Bigsby is content never to call himself a ‘real writer’

12 April

In the academy all must have prizes, but nothing breeds success like failure. Steven Schwartz argues that students gain more from blind alleys than from victory processions, as failure engenders the ‘true grit’ essential to achievement in the real world

29 March