On dead dogs and unwritten jokes: Life in the university today

Abstract

What does it mean to work and write in a UK university today? While many seem concerned about the heavy pressures that academics face in terms of producing articles for research assessment purposes, we wonder whether it might not make more sense to turn our attention inward for a moment to raise some uncomfortable questions about our own complicity. What is our usual response to this system so many of us seem to regard as absurd? One response is to shrug our shoulders and crack a joke. This might elicit knowing guffaws from our colleagues, and a momentary breathing space, before it is time to return to the grind of daily academic work. Another response might be to openly bemoan the strictures on our alleged academic freedom. If so, ‘doth the academic protest too much?’ – are we perhaps guilty of paradoxically clinging to the very thing we claim to abhor? As two relatively recently appointed lecturers in a UK business school, we explore these questions through our own impressions and experiences.