Re-enchanting the academy: popular

education and the search for soul in the modern

universityProfessor Linden West

Canterbury Christ Church University

2015

Introduction: the contextWider cultures in crisis? Racism,

fundamentalism and distressed urban contexts: the decline of public space and

the absent university?

Disenchantment in the university? The ‘soul’ of the modern business,

entrepreneurial and bureaucratic university? Economically focused,

marketised, individualised, commodified, and the decline of social responsibility;

‘look on the websites’

Re-visiting an older experiment in democratic higher education: serving

society rather than elites

R.H.Tawney and an ‘experiment’ in democratic higher education

Tawney, privileged, Christian ethical socialist

The tutorial class movement; 30 working class people as learners and teachers, a

constructivist view.

Disenchantment, incorporation and Jonathan Rose; encounters with otherness, ‘recognition’ and social solidarity

The purpose of university education: local, liberal, and an education for citizens, rather

than meritocracy; learning fraternal, democratic association, encounters with the

other, and building the Kingdom on earth

Old hat, Victorian earnestness and lost faith in religious narratives and education?

Mass higher education, its disenchantment: ‘another lifestyle choice’?

The fragility of the multi-cultural social order, of democracy, the decline of public space and the

social responsibility of universities

Re-enchanting the modern university? Democracy will only thrive if it is experienced, or

learned, widely across a culture

Rediscovering soul in social purpose/the education of citizens?

Readings

Bainbridge A and West L (2012) (Eds) Psychoanalysis and Education, minding the gap. London: Karnac.Barnett R (2011) Being a University. London: RoutledgeBiesta G (2011) Learning democracy in school and society: education, lifelong learning and the politics of citizenship. Boston: Sense.Fieldhouse R (1996) A History of Modern British Adult Education. Leicester, NIACE.Finnegan F., Merrill B. and Thunborg C. (2014) (Eds) Student Voices on Inequalities in European Higher Education: Challenges for theory, policy and practice in a time of change. London: Routledge (in press). Freeman, M (2014) The Priority of the Other. Thinking and Living beyond the Self. Oxford: University Press.Goldman, L (2013) The Life of R.H.Tawney; socialism and history. London: Bloomsbury Honneth, A. (2007). Disrespect, the normative foundations of critical theory. Polity Press.Honneth, A. (2009). Pathologies of Reason. Columbia University Press.Merrill B and West L (2009) Using biographical methods in social research. London: SageMirowski, R. (2012) Never let a serious crisis go to waste. London: Verso.Rose J (2010) (2nd edn). The intellectual life of the British Working Classes. London: Yale University Press Varvin S (2012). Islamism and Xenophobia, in L.Auested (ed), Psychoanalysis and Politics: exclusion and representation. London: Karnac.Watson D (2014) The Question of Conscience; higher education and personal responsibility. London: IOE.West L (1972) The Tawney Legend Re-examined. Studies in Adult Education, 4, 2. West, L., Fleming, T., and Finnegan, F., (2013) Connecting Bourdieu, Winnicott, and Honneth: Understanding the experiences of non-traditional learners through an interdisciplinary lens, Studies in the Education of Adults, Volume 45 Number 2, Autumn 2013West L (2014) Learning democracy and fundamentalism ; narratives of change, disrespect and recognition . In Reid H and West L (Eds). Narratives of Change and Continuity. London: Routledge (in press).West L (2014) Transformative Learning and the form that transforms: towards a psychosocial theory of recognition using auto/biographical narrative research. Journal of transformative education , 12, (2), 164-179West L (2016, forthcoming) Distress in the city: racism, fundamentalism and a democratic education. London: Trentham Books