Speaking of Universities

Stefan Collini has uncommon lucidity, stamina, and unparalleled generosity in reading, on our behalf, the hugely verbose and obfuscating documents that convey and impose government policy. His patient form of reasoning in public, while it may seem to be overlooked, has very likely acted, like flood defences under ground, to forestall even worse developments here in the UK. His is a strong, persuasive voice, and we need to hear it. - Marina Warner Stefan Collini pulls back the curtain on the vacuous management-speak of the modern university. 'Accountability' and 'efficiency' are smokescreens for the sale of degrees, the creation of debt, and lower quality teaching dressed up as 'excellence'. Any student who wants to understand what has happened to their university needs to read this book. Any parent who wants to know what lies behind the adverts for securing their child's future might also be interested in what the words in the seller's prospectus actually mean and why they are now there. - Danny Dorling, author of Inequality and the 1% 'It is only through the consistent speech of dissident voices like Stefan Collini that we have any hope of remaking the university as a place defined by academic judgment and thought.' Michael Meranze, Los Angeles Review of Books [Speaking of Universities] is a profound treatment of the place (or plight) of higher education in the 21st-century neoliberal state. It is recommended reading for anyone concerned with the future of the university. - Merritt Moseley, The Sewanee Review