School of Social and Political Science

Description

 Knut H Sørensen (NTNU) and Sharon Traweek (UCLA) will be discussing their book:

Questing Excellence in Academia: A Tale of Two Universities

The book is open access and available to download at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-mono/10.4324/9780429290633/questing-excellence-academia-knut-s%C3%B8rensen-sharon-traweek

“Unlike almost most other studies of neoliberal universities and academic capitalism this book ethnographically explores and interprets those transformations and their contradictions empirically in the everyday practices of students, faculty members, and administrators at two public universities: NTNU in Norway and UCLA in California.

Differently situated in global political economies, both are ambitious, prosperous campuses. The book reflexively examines their disturbing disputes about quality, competition, and innovation. It argues that some academic, bureaucratic, and corporate university governance practices are both unsustainable and undermining what some university students and faculty already do well: circulate interdisciplinary knowledge and its making globally across the diasporic domains of academia, society, industry, and government while addressing the world’s immediate challenges: power, inequities, and sustainability.”

All welcome. No charge.