The Cancellation of Critical Thinking at our Universities
Dr David Harvie & Prof Simon Lilley
Wednesday, 4th of June 2025, 3.30-5.30pm, Charles Carter A15 (or teams)
This seminar, organised by Dr Martin Quinn (LUMS), is based on the book “Shaping for Mediocrity” written by colleagues who went through the forced redundancy of critical management and political economy staff at Leicester Business School a few years ago.
In 2021, as part of a programme called Shaping for Excellence, bosses at the University of Leicester made redundant numerous scholars in what was simultaneously an attack on academic freedom and trade union organisation. The authors of Shaping for Mediocrity not only had front-row seats in the campaign against these mass redundancies, they were in the ring – both as targeted employees and as trade union officers and negotiators. Shaping for Mediocrity tells the inside story of these attacks and the campaign against them. It situates this story within a longer history of struggle to make the university a place where critical thinking is possible, showing how events in Leicester are both reflective of higher education in the UK following four decades of neoliberal ‘reform’ and a particularly egregious instance of the increasingly authoritarian management of public institutions such as universities.
In this research seminar, two of the book’s authors (Dr David Harvie & Professor Simon Lilley) will discuss their work as part of a dialogical book review for the ‘Culture & Organization’ Journal.
Teams (Meeting ID: 316 400 942 673 7 ; Passcode: 6q7hK77V)
In case you cannot catch this event, see below a previous seminar on the book featuring Ronald Hartz, David Harvie, and Simon Lilley.
Lancaster UCU 