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What are Universities For? Paperback – 23 Feb 2012

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Stefan Collini (Author)
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Stefan Collini (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars 19 customer reviews
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Product details

  • Paperback: 240 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin (23 Feb. 2012)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1846144825
  • ISBN-13: 978-1846144820
  • Product Dimensions: 13 x 1.4 x 20.3 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 123,114 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Review

An eloquent and impassioned book (Economist)

Collini is astute, analytical, and often killingly funny (Bevis Hillier Daily Telegraph)

Collini is that rare bird, a don who can be read with pleasure (Michael Barber Tablet, Books of the Year)

One of Britain's finest essayists and writers (Ronan McDonald The Times Higher Education Supplement)

[A] timely lecture for the coalition of dunces ... this is a closely argued defence (Independent on Sunday)

The book is a bit like some university courses. It is erudite, well argued, carefully researched, a fine addition to the debate about the purpose of university education (Scotsman)

[Collini is] stern and splendid in his brief history of the hot debate on useful versus useless knowledge (Fred Inglis Times Higher Education)

It is extremely well written: Collini's prose is lively, well-reasoned and persuasive. The book is a refreshing example of a faculty member engaging with the wider issues of higher education rather than perceiving them through the narrow prism of his own discipline ... a valuable, timely contribution to the discourse (Gerry Wrixon Irish Examiner)

A critique both pointed and witty (Howard Newby Independent)

Collini writes beautifully (Chris Patten Financial Times)

Collini puts his finger on the nub of the problem facing universities. Collini's book is a must-read (AC Grayling Literary Review)

About the Author

Stefan Collini has become one of the most respected voices in public debates about universities and their place in modern society.He is a Professor of Intellectual History and English Literature at Cambridge University and Fellow of the British Academy, who frequently contributes to The Guardian,The London Review of Books,The Times Literary Supplement and The Nation.Reviewers of the recent, Common Reading: Critics, Historians,Publics (2008), described him as 'one of Britain's finest essaysists and writers.'Other works include Absent Minds: Intellectuals in Britain (2006),Public Moralists (1991),Matthew Arnold: a Critical Portrait (1994) and English Pasts: Essays in History and Culture (1999).

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Top Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 starsBegging an unanswerable question...
By Prof. G. SPORTON on 20 Mar. 2012
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
Collini's book is not a serious attempt to answer the question he poses. It is more an assertion of the value of the University as a public good, and an invitation to join the cause (though a paragraph on p 56 comes very close). His task is made more problematic by the fact that universities are a heterogeneous bunch that lack internal consistency as individual institutions, let alone as a sector, and that we live in a moment that thinks all public policy is about economic growth at the exclusion of everything else. He is strong on disposing of some of the more traditional defences of university privilege, despatching Newman and his ilk, and contextualising the argument about instrumentalism that currently rages across the piece, demonstrating less of an affinity with the past and more concern about the future of higher education once purged of its uselessness. For Collini, the idea of leaving the fate of the sector in the hands of the nation's 18 year-olds is anathema. Working in an HEI, I can't help but agree with him: it is an abrogation of responsibility to the emerging generation by politicians and civil servants who are always looking to shift responsibility from their own shoulders.

His problem is the same as everyone else who has tried to deal with these issues: whilst his argument for support remains one that is generalised and abstracted, the flat-footed, practical types that dictate policy (and he cruelly exposes their intellectual limitations in the analyses of their White Papers and so on) point gruffly at the absence of utility to the failed economy and ask why universities should be indulged.Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsBeautifully written, subtly argued, passionate and wickedly funny case for re-thinking the debate about Universities
By Julian Le Vay on 19 Nov. 2012
Format: Paperback
This beautifully written, subtly argued and passionate book is an intense pleasure to read, and needs to be widely read.

It's starting point is that the terms of public debate have become so degraded that we have lost any real understanding of what universities are really about and for, and why they matter. This book is an attempt to restore that understanding.

The first half consists of a potted history of the evolution of universities and an exposition of what they are, what goes on in them and why they matter. Collini cautions against nostalgia for some golden period, sketching successive changes that have transformed universities, the way they are funded and their perceived role in society. He argues against a false duality between 'arts' or 'humanities' and 'science', and tries to suggest how both have in common the notion of academic inquiry as an open ended but disciplined (and shared) pursuit. He argues that university education is a good in its own right, both for the students and for society, not as an instrument towards employment or citizenship or whatever. It is a measure of this book that he manages in passing to connect this to an essentially humanist idea of what life itself is about, and for.

The second half consists of series of reprinted essays attacking various policies introduced over the past 25 years - the obsession with measuring 'impact', the false dichotomy between 'research' and 'teaching' as a complete taxonomy of academic activity, the invasion of business-speak and the catastrophic mistake of 'marketisation' of higher education.Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsInspiring and challenging
By Chris Owen on 10 Nov. 2016
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
The higher education sector in the UK is in the throes of fundamental change. Collini's book challenges us to re-examine the assumptions and 'taken-for-granteds' behind these reforms. The first part of the book provides a robust defence of the humanities and provides an interesting review of the earlier work by John Henry Newman on the 'idea of a University'. He reminds us of the notion of higher education as a public good, and that as such there is an argument for public funding. In the second part of the book, he traces some of the key reforms of the last 25 years and provides a scathing critique, including working through some of the unintended consequences of the reforms, or perhaps a better description would be accidental consequences!

What I enjoyed about this book was that it challenged me to think more deeply about the purpose of the University. With the everyday pressures of the workplace, basic assumptions can go unchallenged and unquestioned.

Collini shows us that if we try to justify the purpose of the University purely in terms of instrumental outcomes such as economic growth or employability of graduates, we run the risk of missing the essence of why these institutions exist at all.

Here on p.91 he describes a broader vision ;

"...a society does not educate the next generation in order for them to contribute to its economy . It educates them in order that they should extend and deepen their understanding of themselves and the world, acquiring in the course of this form of growing up, kinds of knowledge and skill which will be useful in their eventual employment, but which will no more be the sum of their education than that employment will be the sum of their lives.Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 starsA good question. Some answers

Yeah. A good question. Some answers. O.k.

Published 13 days ago by Rudi Novak
3.0 out of 5 starsInteresting - way too long

Interesting book. I wish there were more books such as this regarding in the broadest of terms the following issues: 1-How should funds be allocated to the universities and within... Read more

Published 1 month ago by Conte Ugolino
4.0 out of 5 starsInsightful, although very pompous to begin with

This is quite a short book, with a focus that's probably obvious from the title - given the vast range of institutions, courses, disciplines, academics and activities - what does... Read more

Published 10 months ago by Dr. Michael Heron
5.0 out of 5 starsIn defence of education!

Written in defence of university teaching of humanity, even if there is no direct benefit to the taxpayer funding Universities. Read more

Published 13 months ago by MPT
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

Important book for my work with Philosophy for Educational Renewal

Published 22 months ago by Dr. Eric Blaire
5.0 out of 5 starsVery good

Much-needed analysis of the current crisis in university funding - should be required reading for every politician.

Published on 1 Aug. 2014 by Murray
4.0 out of 5 starsExcellent

A very enlightening view into the mind of a humanities lecturer at a traditional University. He provides convincing arguments, from this perspective. Balanced? Read more

Published on 21 May 2014 by Peter
4.0 out of 5 starsA bit of a bumpy ride - if only it was all like the second part.

Often people skip the introduction to books especially if it has latin numerals as this usually means that it does not form a part of the main text of the book and possibly it... Read more

Published on 6 Mar. 2014 by Andrew Dalby
4.0 out of 5 starsMade a convincing case

This book was clear and concise and made the case well that universities are not only there for economic reasons but for cultural ones as well. Read more

Published on 2 Oct. 2013 by Nic S
2.0 out of 5 starsStill not much the wiser.

A bit of a lazy book - much is reprinting of previously published works - this causes quite a lot of repetition and the author actually lamely tries to justify this. Read more

Published on 12 Mar. 2013 by JTWaterloo

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