Abstract
In this chapter, the new university is framed as a market-driven, corporatised organisation that is in stark contrast with an older university model based on Humboldtian principles of culture. The neoliberal imperative in Western nations has heralded many changes to the way modern academics perform and has made demands that have fundamentally changed the experience of both teaching and learning in higher education. The chapter unpacks the consumer/product relationships between students and academics in higher education through personal narratives. The approach adopted in the two vignettes falls under the umbrella of auto-ethnography. From a critical standpoint, the narratives tap into the affective dimension of lived experience and focus on both academics and students as they grapple with the challenges of the neoliberal university. The academic in the new university is caught at the crossroad of educative purpose and service provision, a standpoint from which to look ahead and occupy positive spaces of scope and possibility.
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
Beatty, A. (2010). How did it feel for you? Emotion, narrative, and the limits of ethnography. American Anthropologist, 112(3), 430–443.
Brunila, K. (2016). The ambivalence of becoming a professor in neoliberal academia. Qualitative Inquiry, 22(5), 386–394.
Cahill, D., & Konings, M. (2017). Neoliberalism. Polity Press.
Chodor, T. (2015). Neoliberal hegemony and the Pink Tide in Latin America. Palgrave Macmillan.
Eagleton-Pierce, M. (2016). Neoliberalism: The key concepts. Routledge.
Epstein, D. (2019). Range: How generalists triumph in a specialised world. Macmillan.
Giroux, H. (2000). Stealing innocence: Corporate culture’s war on children. Palgrave.
Giroux, H. (2016). Radical politics in the age of American authoritarianism: connecting the dots. https://truthout.org/articles/radical-politics-in-the-age-of-american-authoritarianism-connecting-the-dots/
Hancock, A.-M. (2011). Solidarity politics for millennials: A guide to ending the oppression Olympics. Palgrave Macmillan.
Heffernan, T. (2021). Sexism, racism, prejudice, and bias: A literature review and synthesis of research surrounding student evaluations of courses and teaching. Assessment & Evaluations in Higher Education, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2021.1888075
Hook, G. (2019). Feminist pedagogy: Fractures of recognition in higher education. In M. Breeze, Y. Taylor, & C. Costa (Eds.), Time and space in the neoliberal university: Futures and fractures in higher education (pp. 43–64). Palgrave Macmillan.
HundrED. (2016). Sir Ken Robinson and assessment. https://hundred.org/en/articles/5-sir-ken-robinson-compares-human-organisations-to-organisms-education-is-a-dynamic-system#31d297f4. Accessed 8 January 2020.
Jones, B. (2020). What is to be done: Political engagement and saving the planet. Scribe.
Judd-Lam, S. (2017). A millennial apologetic more than smart phones and smashed avocados. Zadok Perspectives, 137, 4–5.
Judt, T. (2013). Thinking the twentieth century. Vintage Books.
Kallio, K.-M., Kallio, T., & Grossi, G. (2017). Performance measurement in universities: Ambiguities in the use of quality versus quantity in performance indicators. Public Money & Management, 37(4), 293–300.
Karp, P. (2020, June 19). Australian university fees to double for some arts courses, but fall for Stem subjects. The Guardian.
Leavitt, J. (1996). Meaning and feeling in the anthropology of emotions. American Ethnologist, 23(3), 514–539.
Lipton, B. (2019). Closed doors: Academic collegiality, isolation, competition and resistance in the contemporary Australian university. In M. Breeze, Y. Taylor, & C. Costa (Eds.), Time and space in the neoliberal university: Futures and fractures in higher education (pp. 15–42). Palgrave Macmillan.
Maisuria, A., & Helmes, S. (2020). Life for the academic in the neoliberal university. Routledge.
Mayo, P. (2015). Introduction—Hegemony and neoliberalism: A Gramscian antidote. Hegemony and education under neoliberalism: Insights from Gramsci (pp. 1–17). Routledge.
Morton, A. (2007). Hegemony and world order: Neo-Gramscian perspectives and the global political economy. Unravelling Gramsci: Hegemony and passive revolution in the global political economy (pp. 111–136). Pluto Press.
Peters, M., & Roberts, P. (1999). Globalisation and the crisis in the concept of the modern university. Australian Universities’ Review, 42(1), 47–55.
Richardson, L. (1997). Fields of play: Constructing an academic life. Rutgers University Press.
Robinson, K. (2016). Sir Ken Robinson and assessment/Interviewer: HundrED. 2017 Innovation Summit, HundrED.
Ross, A., & Rouse, S. (2020). (Young) generations as social identities: The role of Latino* Millennial/Generation Z in shaping attitudes about climate change. Political Behaviour. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-020-09649-8
Ross, S., Savage, L., & Watson, J. (2020). University teachers and resistance in the neoliberal university. Labour Studies Journal, 45(3), 227–249.
Rouse, S., & Ross, A. (2018). Millennials to the rescue? Climate change (dis)belief in the United States and the future of environmental policy. The politics of Millennials: Political beliefs and policy preferences of America’s most diverse generation (pp. 149–172). University of Michigan Press.
SASPA. (2020). Pat Thomson: A recent visit to South Australia. https://www.saspa.com.au/2020/04/21/pat-thomson-a-recent-visit-to-south-australia/
Shipley, H. (2018). Failure to launch? Feminist endeavours as a partial academic. In Y. Taylor, & K. Lahad (Eds.), Feeling academic in the Neoliberal University (pp. 1–32). Palgrave.
Steger, R. (2010). Neoliberalism: A very short introduction. Oxford University Press.
Stein, J., & Sanburn, J. (2013). The new greatest generation: Why millennials will save us all. TIME Magazine, 181, 26–35.
Thomson, P. (2018). A long goodbye to the ‘Good Girl’: An auto-ethnographic account. In Y. Taylor & K. Lahad (Eds.), Feeling academic in the neoliberal university: Feminist flights, fights and failures (pp. 243–260). Palgrave.
Threadgold, S. (2020). Introduction: Towards a Bourdieusian sociology of affective affinity. Bourdieu and affect: Towards a theory of affective affinities (pp. 1–28). Bristol University Press.
Tülübas, T., & Göktürk, S. (2020). Neoliberal governmentality and performativity culture in higher education: Reflections on academic identity. Research in Educational Administration & Leadership, 5(1), 198–232.
Van Maanen, J. (2011). Tales of the field: On writing ethnography. The University of Chicago Press.
Wilson, J. (2017a). Introduction: Living in competition. Neoliberalism (pp. 1–18). Routledge.
Wilson, J. (2017b). Neoliberalism. Routledge.
Wilson, J. (2017c). A new hegemony: The rise of neoliberalism. Neoliberalism (pp. 21–49). Routledge.
Wolfe, M., & Mayes, E. (2019). Response-ability: Re-e-valuing shameful measuring processes within the Australian academy. In M. Breeze, Y. Taylor, & C. Costa (Eds.), Time and space in the neoliberal university: Futures and fractures in higher education (pp. 277–298). Palgrave Macmillan.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Pelosi, L. (2023). I Paid for This, So Now Give It to Me: University as Retailer, Knowledge as Product, Student as Customer. In: Vicars, M., Pelosi, L. (eds) Storying Pedagogy as Critical Praxis in the Neoliberal University. Rethinking Higher Education. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-4246-6_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-4246-6_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-99-4245-9
Online ISBN: 978-981-99-4246-6
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)