Event Details

Dr David Harvie & Professor Simon Lilley will present in this OWT research seminar. The seminar is hybrid both in person in CC A15 and on Teams (Meeting ID: 316 400 942 673 7 ; Passcode: 6q7hK77V).

Abstract:

In 2021, as part of a programme called Shaping for Excellence, bosses at the University

of Leicester made redundant numerous scholars in what was simultaneously an attack

on academic freedom and trade union organisation. The authors of Shaping for

Mediocrity not only had front-row seats in the campaign against these mass

redundancies, they were in the ring - both as targeted employees and as trade union

officers and negotiators. Shaping for Mediocrity tells the inside story of these attacks

and the campaign against them. It situates this story within a longer history of struggle

to make the university a place where critical thinking is possible, showing how events in

Leicester are both reflective of higher education in the UK following four decades of

neoliberal 'reform' and a particularly egregious instance of the increasingly authoritarian

management of public institutions such as universities.

In this research seminar, two of the book's authors (Dr David Harvie & Professor Simon

Lilley) will discuss their work as part of a dialogical book review for the ‘Culture &

Organization’ Journal.