The Knowledge Contract: Politics and Paradigms in the Academic Workplace - Tapa dura

"Both timely and provocative, this compelling book by David B. Downing succeeds in the very difficult task of relating the internal organization and subject matter of an academic field to the sociology of the profession." Marc Bousquet, the founding editor of Workplace: The Journal for Academic Labor "The Knowledge Contract takes up one of the most important topics in the humanities--the university and its current prospects. Its central innovation is its examination of Thomas Kuhn's conception of paradigms. Along the way, Downing takes up current issues facing the university, such as diversity, cosmopolitanism, globalism, and academic labor." Jeffrey Williams, co-editor of The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism

The Knowledge Contract intervenes in the ongoing debates about the changing conditions of higher education in America, with a special focus on English studies and the humanities. This highly original study integrates three crucial concerns: the economic restructuring of higher education, the transformation of disciplinary models of teaching and research, and the rise of the academic labor movement. Whereas most contemporary critiques of higher education have focused on the impact of global economic forces, The Knowledge Contract adds a new dimension to the discussion by addressing the tensions between disciplinary and nondisciplinary forms of academic work. David B. Downing draws on several traditions of scholarship: histories of the university, sociological studies of education, critiques of disciplinary and interdisciplinary forms of work, histories of academic capitalism and the labor movement, and field-specific analyses of the history of English studies. Building on his analysis, Downing develops alternative possibilities to the dominance of disciplinary forms of labor and offers scenarios for creating more equitable working and learning conditions for faculty and students.