The Knowledge Contract: Politics and Paradigms in the Academic Workplace - Softcover

Downing, David B.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0803222319 ISBN 13: 9780803222311

Publisher: University of Nebraska Press, 2007

Synopsis

The Knowledge Contract intervenes in the ongoing debates about the changing conditions of higher education in America, with a special focus on English studies and the humanities. This highly original study integrates three crucial concerns: the economic restructuring of higher education, the transformation of disciplinary models of teaching and research, and the rise of the academic labor movement. Whereas most contemporary critiques of higher education have focused on the impact of global economic forces, The Knowledge Contract adds a new dimension to the discussion by addressing the tensions between disciplinary and nondisciplinary forms of academic work. David B. Downing draws on several traditions of scholarship: histories of the university, sociological studies of education, critiques of disciplinary and interdisciplinary forms of work, histories of academic capitalism and the labor movement, and field-specific analyses of the history of English studies. Building on his analysis, Downing develops alternative possibilities to the dominance of disciplinary forms of labor and offers scenarios for creating more equitable working and learning conditions for faculty and students.

About this title

About the Author:

David B. Downing is a professor of English at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He is the editor of Changing Classroom Practices: Resources for Literary and Cultural Studies and the coeditor of Beyond English, Inc.: Curricular Reform in a Global Economy, among other books. He edits the journal Works and Days.

Review:

""The Knowledge Contract" takes up one of the most important topics in the humanities-the university and its current prospects. Its central innovation is its examination of Thomas Kuhn's conception of paradigms. Along the way, Downing takes up current issues facing the university, such as diversity, cosmopolitanism, globalism, and academic labor."-Jeffrey Williams, coeditor of "The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism"

"Both timely and provocative, this compelling book by David B. Downing succeeds in the very difficult task of relating the internal organization and subject matter of an academic field to the sociology of the profession."-Marc Bousquet, the founding editor of "Workplace: The Journal for Academic Labor"

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0803222319
• ISBN 13: 9780803222311
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 326