Abstract
Universities are overrun with competitive “finite games” that obscure possibilities for transformation. These games draw academic players into an oscillation between pride and shame and encourage them to mistake winning the game at hand for a more radical challenge to the competition itself. The “infinite game” is a metaphor for an alternative playing field in which players occupy a hermeneutics of love. As a would-be infinite player, the author describes her attempt to create a university network with love at its centre. The chapter concludes by reflecting on what might happen if academics tried, or at least pretended it was possible, to stay true to love.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Allen, R. L. (2007). Black awakening in capitalist American. In Incite!-Women-of-Color-Against-Violence (Ed.), The revolution will not be funded (pp. 53–62). South End Press.
Bernstein, M., Harvey, B., & Naples, N. A. (2018). Marriage, the final frontier? Same-sex marriage and the future of the lesbian and gay movement. Sociological Forum, 33(1), 30–52.
Black, A. L., Crimmins, G., & Jones, J. K. (2017). Reducing the drag: Creating V formations through slow scholarship and story. In S. Riddle, M. Harmes, & P. A. Danaher (Eds.), Producing pleasure within the contemporary university. Sense Publishing.
Carse, J. P. (1986). Finite and infinite games. The Free Press.
Duckett, P., Fryer, D., Lawthom, R., Easpaig, B. N. G., & Radermacher, H. (2013). The good, the bad and the ugly: Searching for critical research in psychology. Qualitative Research Journal, 13(2), 145–153.
Faculty of Science Sustainability Network. (n.d.). Science Sustainability Network. Retrieved January 24, 2020, from https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/science/about-the-faculty/sustainability/science-sustainability-network.html
Fredrickson, B. L. (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist, 56(3), 218–226.
Grant, B. M. (2018). Wrestling with career: An autoethnographic tale of a cracked academic self. In D. Bottrell & C. Manathunga (Eds.), Resisting neoliberalism in higher education: Seeing through the cracks (Vol. 1, pp. 119–134). Palgrave Macmillan.
Grant, B. M., & Elizabeth, V. (2014). Unpredictable feelings: Academic women under research audit. British Educational Research Journal, 41(2), 287–302.
Harré, N. (2016). No women CEOs in NZ’s top fifty companies—Tragedy or hope? http://www.infinite-game.net/blog/2016/8/28/no-women-ceos-in-nzs-top-fifty-companies-tragedy-or-hope
Harré, N. (2017). The shame of finite games. http://www.infinite-game.net/blog/2017/1/13/the-shame-of-finite-games
Harré, N. (2018). The infinite game: How to live well together. Auckland University Press.
Harré, N. (2019). Let’s assume people are good: Rethinking research in community psychology. The Australian Community Psychologist, 30(1), 81–91.
Harré, N., Grant, B. M., Locke, K., & Sturm, S. (2017a). The university as an infinite game: Revitalising activism in the academy. Australian Universities Review, 59(2), 5–13.
Harré, N., Madden, H., Brooks, R., & Goodman, J. (2017b). Sharing values as a foundation for collective hope. Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 5(2), 342–366. https://doi.org/10.5964/jspp.v5i2.742
Hawk, M. T. (2007). Native organising before the non-profit industrial complex. In Incite! Women of Color Against Violence (Ed.), The revolution will not be funded (pp. 101–106). South End Press.
Jeffers, S. (1987). Feel the fear and do it anyway: How to turn your fear and indecision into confidence and action. Arrow Books.
Lorde, A. (1984/1996). The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. In Sister outsider The Audre Lorde compendium. HarperCollins.
Marcuse, H. (1964). One-dimensional man. Beacon Press.
Merton, T. (1965/1979). Love and living. Harcourt.
Mountz, A., Bonds, A., Mansfield, B., Loyd, J., Hyndman, J., Walton-Roberts, M., … Curran, W. (2015). For slow scholarship: A feminist politics of resistance through collective action in the neoliberal university. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, 14(4), 1235–1259.
Probyn, E. (2005). Blush: The faces of shame. University of Minnesota Press.
Quinn, R. (2016). CEO gender imbalance ‘gobsmacking’. RNZ. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/303777/ceo-gender-imbalance-‘gobsmacking’
Rich, A. (1975). Poems selected and new, 1950–1974. Norton and Company.
Robbins, B. D. (2016). Introduction to special issue on community psychology and the hermeneutics of love. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 56(3), 215–222.
Selig, J. L. (2016). Borne forward ceaselessly into love: A theory of the hermeneutics of love exemplified by Martin Luther King, Jr. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 56(3), 238–262.
Woolf, V. (1929/1977). A room of one’s own. Collins.
Zournazi, M. (2002). A ‘cosmo-politics’—Risk, hope, change a conversation with Isabelle Stengers. In M. Zournazi (Ed.), Hope: New philosophies for change (pp. 244–273). Pluto Press Australia.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Harré, N. (2021). Beyond Shame and Pride: The University as a Game of Love. In: Black, A.L., Dwyer, R. (eds) Reimagining the Academy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75859-2_19
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75859-2_19
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-75858-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-75859-2
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)