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The 'Two Cultures' debate of the 1960s between C.P. Snow and F.R. Leavis is one of the most misunderstood intellectual disputes of the 20th century. Most people think that the debate only revolved around the notion that our society is characterized by a divide between two cultures – the arts or humanities on one hand, and the sciences on the other. This book is based on an extended conversation between Howard Burton and University of Cambridge intellectual historian Stefan Collini— and author of the book, What Are Universities For?— which provides a careful examination and illuminating insights of what the issues really were in this debate. This carefully-edited book includes an introd...
Across the world, universities are more numerous than they have ever been, yet at the same time there is unprecedented confusion about their purpose and scepticism about their value. What Are Universities For? offers a spirited and compelling argument for completely rethinking the way we see our universities, and why we need them. Stefan Collini challenges the common claim that universities need to show that they help to make money in order to justify getting more money. Instead, he argues that we must reflect on the different types of institution and the distinctive roles they play. In particular we must recognize that attempting to extend human understanding, which is at the heart of disciplined intellectual enquiry, can never be wholly harnessed to immediate social purposes - particularly in the case of the humanities, which both attract and puzzle many people and are therefore the most difficult subjects to justify. At a time when the future of higher education lies in the balance, What Are Universities For? offers all of us a better, deeper and more enlightened understanding of why universities matter, to everyone.
In recent decades there has been an immense global surge in the numbers both of universities and of students. In the UK alone there are now over 140 institutions teaching more subjects than ever to nearly 2.5 million students. New technology offers new ways of learning and teaching. Globalisation forces institutions to consider a new economic horizon. At the same time governments have systematically imposed new procedures regulating funding, governance, and assessment. Universities are being forced to behave more like business enterprises in a commercial marketplace than centres of learning. In Speaking of Universities, historian and critic Stefan Collini analyses these changes and challenge...
A revised and fully updated edition, featuring five new chapters reflecting recent scholarship on Woolf.
Examines claims that the criticism of another's deeply held ideas or beliefs is offensive, resulting in blocking the expression or publication of such criticism. Argues that treating others as capable of engaging in reasoned arguments, equals in intellect and humanity, is a way of demonstrating respect.
The study and teaching of English literature is generally regarded as one of the central disciplines in the modern university, yet for much of its history it struggled to gain academic legitimacy and was frequently derided as 'a soft option'. Its early professors responded by emphasizing its scholarly character, foregrounding philology and literary history in ways that marked the syllabus far into the twentieth century. Stefan Collini provides here the first full account of the discipline's development from its late-eighteenth-century beginnings up to the early 1960s. Paying special attention to institutional settings, he challenges numerous assumptions about the character of universities in...
Examines the entanglement of secularity and liberality in the foundation of the modern state in Britain. "Modern" Britain emerged from the outcome of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. The rather standard Whig account of the long nineteenth century is one of growing stability, progress and improvement. And yet nothing was preordained or inevitable about the period's stability. Ruling elites felt the constant anxieties of revolutionary terrorism. As Lubenow argues, it was a period of disorganization seeking organization. The great nineteenth-century reform acts against religious monopoly were aspects of this process of political organization. While religion did not disappear, thes...
This collection aims to enable the reader to disentangle some of the ambiguities and confusions which have characterized the use of the term 'historiography'.
This is a collection of essays by a leading historian and critic. Subjects include: the idea of `the national past', the historian as social critic, the claims of Cultural Studies, the nature of academic `research', the function of the literary biography, and the lives and ideas of such figures as Charles Darwin, John Stuart Mill, Anthony Trollope, George Eliot, Bertrand Russell, R. H. Tawney, Isaiah Berlin, Raymond Williams, and Richard Hoggart. Aimed at the non-specialist reader. - ;In this collection of engaging and readable essays, Stefan Collini shows how much can be gained from bringing a rigorous historical perspective to some of the most contentious issues in contemporary culture. Wh...
A Companion to Intellectual History provides an in-depth survey of the practice of intellectual history as a discipline. Forty newly-commissioned chapters showcase leading global research with broad coverage of every aspect of intellectual history as it is currently practiced. Presents an in-depth survey of recent research and practice of intellectual history Written in a clear and accessible manner, designed for an international audience Surveys the various methodologies that have arisen and the main historiographical debates that concern intellectual historians Pays special attention to contemporary controversies, providing readers with the most current overview of the field Demonstrates the ways in which intellectual historians have contributed to the history of science and medicine, literary studies, art history and the history of political thought Named Outstanding Academic Title of 2016 by Choice Magazine, a publication of the American Library Association