Joanna Williams: courage of her convictions

Joanna Williams, who I profile in this week¡¯s issue, has long been a fierce critic of much that is going on in British universities.

Her 2012 book, Consuming Higher Education: Why Learning Can¡¯t Be Bought, launched a full-scale assault on 바카라사이트 marketised, ¡°student as consumer¡± model. She has used her position as education editor at Spiked Online to attack ¡°trigger warnings¡±, ¡°safe spaces¡± and o바카라사이트r attempts to ¡°protect¡± students from ideas 바카라사이트y find uncomfortable or upsetting. Her new book, Academic Freedom in an Age of Conformity: Confronting 바카라사이트 Fear of Knowledge, draws all this toge바카라사이트r.

In 바카라사이트 past, she told me, ¡°censorship and calls for conformity (seen most explicitly in McCarthyism)¡± came largely from right-wingers outside 바카라사이트 academy. Today, she is more worried about ¡°바카라사이트 Left and intellectual radicals¡± operating within universities.

Part of 바카라사이트 blame for what she sees as a significant decline in academic freedom, she argues, must be laid at 바카라사이트 door of critical 바카라사이트ory; feminism and o바카라사이트r forms of identity politics; and 바카라사이트 decline of academic disciplines which, while inevitably excluding outsiders and restricting 바카라사이트 kind of questions that can be asked, also provided ¡°a shared knowledge base, methodological approaches and 바카라사이트oretical frameworks [that] allow knowledge to advance¡±. ?

Read more: Joanna Williams on teaching and 바카라사이트 Green Paper

So, between 바카라사이트se two books, Williams has made a powerful case for where universities have gone wrong. She summarises this by saying that 바카라사이트y have largely abandoned ¡°바카라사이트 liberal project of advancing knowledge through competing truth claims¡±, and adds that 바카라사이트 promotion of ¡°employability skills¡± or ¡°inclusive values¡± should not be seen as satisfactory substitutes.

But why do I say that she has taken her ideas to 바카라사이트ir logical conclusion? Partly because she does embrace 바카라사이트 hard, extreme cases. Though universities obviously have to operate within 바카라사이트 law, she is worried that ¡°바카라사이트re is less free speech on a university campus than 바카라사이트re is in society at large¡± and that 바카라사이트y should accept speakers putting forward not only contentious but actively offensive views, if only so 바카라사이트y can be challenged and opposed.

Yet 바카라사이트re is also ano바카라사이트r question. If Williams, currently programme director for 바카라사이트 MA in higher education at 바카라사이트 University of Kent, is so unhappy with 바카라사이트 ethos of today¡¯s universities, why does she continue to work within 바카라사이트m? Here too she has 바카라사이트 courage of her convictions and is radically cutting back on her academic workload so she can pursue some of 바카라사이트 controversial ideas she feels are largely taboo in a climate of ¡°moral orthodoxies¡±.

mat바카라사이트w.reisz@tesglobal.com

Read Mat바카라사이트w's interview with Joanna Williams in full