Academic Activism and the Postmodern Condition Revisited

Abstract

In this chapter, we turn to Jean-Francois Lyotard’s (The postmodern condition: a report on knowledge (trans: Bennington G, Massumi B). Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1979) influential book, The Postmodern Condition, which had an enduring effect on the understanding of knowledge in the contemporary world. We are drawn to some of his main claims about knowledge, performativity and managerialism and how a philosophy of higher education and academic activism in universities could be reconsidered. Lyotard accentuates the argument in defence of a speculative university by insisting that scientific knowledge should be intertwined with narrative knowledge that will actualise learning possibilities for humanity. In reflecting on higher education in South Africa, we raise concerns about its explicit preoccupations with massification and performativity without due cognisance of the risks of student alienation and neglecting a responsibility to social justice. The attention seems to be only on graduate production, with scant consideration of the kinds of students being passed through a system. We raise similar concerns about slippages into practices of functionalist technical training , as opposed to immersing students into thinking about what they know so that they might reimagine things anew.