Higher Education Discourse and Deconstruction

"Cocks's compelling argument is that when the aim of those critics is to free theory from the tyranny of subjectivity, we are in for a new tyranny: that of the self-evident. This book's sustained plea to still engage with both irredeemable textuality and the excessiveness of subjectivity should be mandatory reading for scholars and their managers." (Jan de Vos, University of Ghent, Belgium) "This astonishing and necessary book neatly dismantles discourses of transparency in contemporary education, and reflexively interrogates ostensibly radical responses to the various ways scholars in the university sector are monitored and undermined. Neil Cocks provides invaluable ammunition for those who really do want to defend academic space. His book is an argument for and exemplar of good critical textual practice." (Ian Parker, Emeritus Professor of Management, University of Leicester, UK)

This book presents a critique of neoliberalism within UK Higher Education, taking its cue from approaches more usually associated with literary studies. It offers a sustained and detailed close reading of three works that might be understood to fall outside the established body of educational theory.This book presents a critique of neoliberalism within UK Higher Education, taking its cue from approaches more usually associated with literary studies. It offers a sustained and detailed close reading of three works that might be understood to fall outside the established body of educational theory. The unconventional methodology and focus promote irreducible difference and complexity, and in this stage a resistance to reductive discourses of managerialism. Questioning the materialism to which all sides of the contemporary pedagogical debate increasingly appeal, the book sets out a challenge to investments in ‘excellence’, ‘transparency’ and objecthood. It will be of interest to students and researchers in the fields of education, sociology, and literary theory.