Realizing the University in an Age of SupercomplexityThe university has lost its way. The world needs the university more than ever but for new reasons. If we are to clarify its new role in the world, we need to find a new vocabulary and a new sense of purpose. The university is faced with supercomplexity, in which our very frames of understanding, action and self-identity are all continually challenged. In such a world, the university has explicitly to take on a dual role: firstly, of compounding supercomplexity, so making the world ever more challenging; and secondly, of enabling us to live effectively in this chaotic world. Internally, too, the university has to become a new kind of organization, adept at fulfilling this dual role. The university has to live by the uncertainty principle: it has to generate uncertainty, to help us live with uncertainty, and even to revel in our uncertainty. Ronald Barnett offers nothing less than a fundamental reworking of the way in which we understand the modern university. Realizing the University is essential reading for all those concerned about the future of higher education. |
Contents
Death and Resurrection | 11 |
The End of Enlightenment? | 23 |
The Ends of Knowledge | 35 |
Copyright | |
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academic community Accordingly action action learning activities age of supercomplexity amid supercomplexity appear argument become boundaries brave new world calls capacity challenges character claims collegiality complexity concepts conditions of supercomplexity conflict constellation of fragility contestability continue critical critique David Warner Dearing Report develop disciplines discourses domains emancipation engage Enlightenment environment epistemic epistemological ethos Firstly frames of understanding frameworks global Habermas human ideal speech situation ideology institution interdisciplinarity kind knowledge production learning lecturers ledge live London manufactured risk mass higher education matter modern university multiple notion offer Open University organization pandemonium partly pedagogical situation performativity philosophy post-modern university postmodernism postmodernists problematic realization reason reframing responsibility role scholarship Secondly secure self-irony self-understanding sense sity social space story supercomplex world teaching term tion traditional turn uncertainty uncertainty principle univer university's unpredictability value positions versity Western university wider society wider world