La rubrique Laboratoire regroupe des travaux work-in-progress d’exploration et de construction conceptuelle.
Attention to metaphors and their analysis have in recent years increasingly come out of the realm of poetry into the realm of social and other sciences. This book review, along with the book itself, could well be read in this context. There are two distinct approaches to such an analysis. One concerns the use of [...]
Meine Damen und Herren, liebe Freunde, Es ist für mich eine große Ehre, um vom großen Vergnügen nicht zu reden, an diesem Abend in Lausann den Charles Veillon-Preis entgegennehmen zu dürfen, den mir die Jury mit einer hochwillkommenen Geste der Großzügigkeit zuerkannt hat. Es ist bei Anlässen wie diesen guter Brauch, daß der auf solche [...]
Mesdames et Messieurs, chers amis, C’est pour moi un grand honneur, pour ne pas dire un grand plaisir, de recevoir ce soir à Lausanne le prix Charles Veillon que le jury m’a attribué dans un geste de générosité fort bienvenu. En des occasions comme celle-ci, il est d’usage que l’auteur ainsi honoré et heureux se [...]
Dear Editorial Board, I am glad to see you are considering this issue. It is crucial to the future of academic research. I include below a few basic thoughts about it. To set a context for these thoughts, I should mention that I am currently working on a larger research project with a colleague, Prof. [...]
As the theme of this traverse clearly states, during the last decade, in the wake of books such as Bill Reading’s The University in Ruins (1997), there has been an increasing academic concern with Audit Cultures (Marilyn Strathern, 2000) or Audit Society (Michael Power, 1997). Particularly within the European University system, a form of critique [...]
In the bygone world (a complex, messy, contradictory world), different kinds of institutions embodied various, incommensurable kinds of value. Academic value was not to be identified with artistic value, nor artistic value with monetary value, and so on. But in our brave new world, it seems that a single final criterion of value is recognized: [...]
Quality Assessment. Rector manificus, ladies and gentlemen, the answer that is given increasingly within the science system reads, “Let us count.” Let us count how many Euros have been acquired, how many publications are realized, and how many citations are generated. The higher the score, the better the researcher. However, it is not that simple. [...]
There is a growing body of literature and events critiquing the spread of ‘audit cultures’ [...]
It’s been a long time since academic discussions about research and teaching were part of the board meetings of the department of Anthropology and Sociology of the University of Amsterdam. Most of our meetings today deal with administrative problems only. Sometimes these departmental meetings are followed immediately by teaching obligations. Usually, I find it hard [...]
‘Now, of course, we live in Thatcher’s psyche if not her anus, in the world she made, of competition, consumerism, celebrity and guilt’s bastard son, charity: bingeing and debt.’ Hanif Kureishi (2008: 271) The hidden injuries of the neo-liberal University. In a recently published piece titled ‘Breaking the Silence: The Hidden Injuries of the Neoliberal [...]
