“What we have witnessed in our own time is the death of universities as centres of critique. Since Margaret Thatcher, the role of academia has been to service the status quo, not challenge it in the name of justice, tradition, imagination, human welfare, the free play of the mind or alternative visions of the future. We will not change this simply by increasing state funding of the humanities as opposed to slashing it to nothing. We will change it by insisting that a critical reflection on human values and principles should be central to everything that goes on in universities, not just to the study of Rembrandt or Rimbaud.” ImaginationJusticeTraditionUniversityAcademiaRadicalismHumanities2010RembrandtRadical PoliticsReactionary PoliticsArthur RimbaudMargaret ThatcherPublic UniversityTuition Fees Uk2010 Uk Student Protests Author:Terry Eagleton
“Might not too much investment in teaching Shelley mean falling behind our economic competitors? But there is no university without humane inquiry, which means that universities and advanced capitalism are fundamentally incompatible. And the political implications of that run far deeper than the question of student fees.” PoliticsCapitalismCompetitionUniversityHumanitiesPercy Bysshe ShelleyTuition Fees Uk2010 Uk Student Protest Author:Terry Eagleton