Challenging Knowledge : The University in the Knowledge Society

by Delanty, Gerard

• ISBN13: 9780335205783
• ISBN10: 033520578X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-05-01
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill

Summary

"For far too long, we have waited for a book that recorded the ideas of the modern university. Now, in Gerard Delanty's new book, we have it. Delanty has faithfully set out the views of the key thinkers and, in the process, has emerged with an idea of the university that is his. We are in his debt." Professor Ronald Barnett, University of London "Gerard Delanty is one of the most productive and thought-provoking social theorists currently writing in the UK. He brings to his work a sophisticated and impressively cosmopolitan vision. Here he turns his attention to higher education, bringing incisive analysis and a surprising optimism as regards the future of the university. This is a book which will stimulate all thinking people - especially those trying to come to terms with mass higher education and its tribulations." Professor Frank Webster, University of Birmingham "For too long social theory, the sociology of knowledge and studies in higher education have mutually ignored each other. Gerard Delanty, founding editor of the European Journal of Social Theory, was just the right person to bring them into dialogue. Indeed, 'dialogue' and 'communication' are his watchwords for revamping the institutional mission of the university." Professor Steve Fuller, University of Warwick Drawing from current debates in social theory about the changing nature of knowledge, this book offers the most comprehensive sociological theory of the university that has yet appeared. The famous philosophical conceptions of the university from the Enlightenment to postmodern thought are discussed along with the major writings in modern social theory on the university, such as those of Weber, Parsons, Habermas, Gadamer, Lyotard and Bourdieu. In this far reaching contribution to the sociology of knowledge, Delanty views the university as a key institution of modernity and as the site where knowledge, culture and society interconnect. He assesses the question of the crisis of the university with respect to issues such as globalization, the information age, the nation state, academic capitalism, cultural politics and changing relationships between research and teaching. Arguing against the notion of the demise of the university, his argument is that in the knowledge society of today a new identity for the university is emerging based on communication and new conceptions of citizenship. It will be essential reading for those interested in changing relationships between modernity, knowledge, higher education and the future of the university.

Author Biography

Gerard Delanty is Professor of Sociology in the University of Liverpool, UK

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgements	vii
Introduction: Challenging Knowledge	1	(11)
Knowledge and Cognition: The Sociology of Knowledge Reconsidered	12	(14)
Rethinking the sociology of knowledge	13	(4)
Cognitive shifts and the social theory of modernity	17	(5)
The university and the transformation of knowledge	22	(4)
The University in the Age of Liberal Modernity: Between Cosmopolitanism and Nation State	26	(18)
The rise of the modern university	27	(8)
Liberal modernity: the nineteenth century	35	(4)
The decline of liberal modernity	39	(5)
The University in Organized Modernity: Capitalism, the State and Citizenship	44	(15)
The university and Citizenship	46	(5)
The Parsonian theory: the cognitive function of the university	51	(5)
Social change and the university	56	(3)
The Transformative Project: Democracy, the Counter-culture and communication	59	(15)
The crisis of organized modernity: culture and politics	61	(3)
The new German debate on the university: Habermas, Gadamer and Schelsky	64	(6)
The rise of student revolt: Marcuse, Touraine and Riesman	70	(4)
The Institutionalization of Critique: Intellectuals, the Public Sphere and the University	74	(14)
Mannheim and Gramsci on intellectuals and modernity	75	(3)
Traditional intellectuals and conservative critique: from Benda to Bloom	78	(1)
Gouldner on the New Class and Universities	79	(4)
In search of public intellectuals	83	(5)
Academic Power and Cultural Capital: Bourdieu on Knowledge and the University	88	(13)
Education as social reproduction	89	(4)
The fields of power within the university	93	(4)
Reflexivity, the scholastic fallacy and intellectuals	97	(4)
The University and the New Production of Knowledge: From the Producer to the User	101	(14)
The end of Knowledge?	103	(3)
The new manageralism	106	(2)
The rise of the knowledge user	108	(2)
The separation of teaching and research	110	(2)
Beyond Mode 2 analysis	112	(3)
Globalization and Academic Capitalism: The New Knowledge Flows	115	(15)
Globalization, the state and the university	116	(4)
Academic capitalism and the triple helix	120	(6)
The reality of the virtual university?	126	(2)
Cosmopolitanism versus globalization	128	(2)
The Postmodern University: Deconstructing Knowledge and Institutions	130	(12)
Postmodernism and knowledge	131	(2)
Postmodern theories of the university	133	(6)
The university in ruins?	139	(3)
The New Politics of Knowledge: Culture Wars, Identity and Multiculturalism	142	(10)
Culture wars and the university	144	(3)
The turn to culture and theory	147	(3)
Beyond instrumentalism and relativism	150	(2)
Conclusion: Knowledge, Citizenship and Reflexivity	152	(7)
References	159	(14)
Index	173	(3)
The Society for Research into Higher Education	176