Making the University Fit for Critical Intellectuals: recovering from the ravages of the postmodern condition

Abstract

AbstractThe author observes that ‘postmodernism’ in its most widely used sense was born of disillusionment with the university's role in state‐driven attempts at social control. Specifically, Lyotard saw the teaching function impeding the natural proliferation of research trajectories. And while he may have correctly identified the reactionary social role of the university in his day, the use of the curriculum to curb, reorient and channel research is not itself reactionary. In fact, it has been a potent vehicle for democratising social life by inhibiting the emergence of new knowledge‐based forms of elitism. The author illustrates this point by considering the role of history across the academic curriculum today, singling out the humanities and ‘softer’ social sciences for their pedagogical attentiveness to the contingent character of research developments. If there is a role for critical intellectuals in academic life, it is in terms of spreading this ‘prolescience’ mentality in whatever discipline they happen to practise and resisting all attempts to sever the evaluation of research from that of teaching. This amounts to an extension of ‘affirmative action’ principles from disadvantaged groups to schools of thought.