Higher Education at a Crossroads - Paul R Geisler Kartoniert (TB)

The central argument of this book posits that today's American university is dysfunctional or perhaps «Dysacademic.» This affective disorder is traced to the increasingly corporate and performative utilities of many contemporary institutions of higher education. Today's commodified and closed university doesn't transform the self as it once did when the pedagogy of Bildung emphasized the development of character and culture by teaching «the rules of thought.» Rather the dysfunctional American university controls constricts and normalizes its subjects according to hyper-structured accred itation-happy economically driven disciplinary specialization and a priori established standards and outcomes that work to define and transform the effective utility of higher education. After deconstructing the discourse of Dysacademia the author outlines his vision for a third curriculum one wrought with complexity self-organization and critical open spaces.