Prof John Holmwood (University of Nottingham)
Knowledge regimes, public higher education and the future of the social sciences
(Co-organised by the Centre for the Study of Socialist Theory & Movements)
4.30 pm, Room 916, Adam Smith Building

This seminar will address the privatisation of knowledge and universities as a consequence of neo-liberal public policies, such as those adopted after the Browne Review. Where previously universities had operated according to a mixed model of private and public activities (described by Kerr as a ‘multiversity’), they are now to be subjected to market disciplines and government regulation designed to secure a privatised knowledge regime. In this context, protests like the ‘Occupy’ movement draw attention to diminished public spaces of debate, with a corollary in the demise of the public university. The idea of the ‘public’, it will be argued, is also central to the development of the social sciences, and sociology in particular (as indicated by recent calls to re-invigorate public sociology). The seminar will address the likely consequences of the attack on public higher education for knowledge production in the social sciences. 

John Holmwood is co-founder of the Campaign for the Public University (http://publicuniversity.org.uk) and editor of  A Manifesto for the Public University (Bloomsbury Academic, 2011) 
http://www.bloomsburyacademic.com/view/A-Manifesto-for-the-Public-University/book-ba-9781849666459.xml

All Welcome

Supported by the McFie Bequest

Any enquiries about the seminar programme should be addressed to:
Dr Kirsteen Paton, Sociology, Adam Smith Building, University of Glasgow G12 8RT
Tel: 0141 330 5070 or email: Kirsteen.Paton@glasgow.ac.uk

For CSSTM, please contact: Bridget.Fowler@glasgow.ac.uk

First published: 24 January 2012

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