Cash Is Better than Tenure”

(De)Constructing the “Posthistorical University” in James Hynes’s Gothic Academic Satire The Lecturer’s Tale

Datos Bibliográficos

ID12948414
AutoresRaluca Andreescu (0000-0002-5010-556X, University of Bucharest, autor de correspondencia)
Año2016
Volumen26
Número1
Páginas87-107
Fecha de publicación2016-06-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaAmerican, British and Canadian Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1841-1487 • E-ISSN: 1841-964X
EditorialDe Gruyter Open (PUBLISHER • PL)
DOI10.1515/abcsj-2016-0006
OpenAlexW2422720713
IdiomaEN
Referencias citadas7

This article analyzes the manner in which James Hynes’s novel The Lecturer’s Tale (2001) can be read as a satire of what Bill Readings identified in his influential The University in Ruins (1996) as the “posthistorical university.” I argue that, in the contemporary context in which higher education establishments are becoming more like corporations and the idea of culture is replaced by the “discourse of excellence,” Hynes’s novel offers an insightful discussion of universities’ negotiation of the Scylla of the pursuit of profit and the Charybdis of self-absorbed literary theorizing and its association with political correctness, the exploitation of junior and non-tenured faculty, and the quest for academic stardom. At the same time, I discuss the way in which the Gothic elements that permeate the novel fittingly double and deepen the critique of contemporary educational establishments and professors

Cash · Context (archaeology · Economics · Excellence · Higher education · Management · Negotiation · Pedagogy · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · Vocational education · Contemporary Literature and Criticism · Crime and Detective Fiction Studies · Gothic Literature and Media Analysis · History · Law