What are Universities For?

In recent years, Stefan Collini has become one of the most distinctive and respected voices in public debates about the nature of universities and their place in modern society.He is a frequent contributor to The Guardian, The London Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, The Nation, and other publications, as well as an occasional broadcaster.Among his books, Absent Minds: Intellectuals in Britain (2006), a major analysis of the role of the intellectual and its place in British culture, has received particularly widespread attention in both the academic world and the general media, while reviewers of his most recent collection of essays, Common Reading: Critics, Historians, Publics (2008), have described him as 'one of Britain's finest essaysists and writers' - 'he is astute, analytical, and often killingly funny'.His other books include Public Moralists (1991), Matthew Arnold: a Critical Portrait (1994), and English Pasts: Essays in History and Culture (1999); he is also the editor of a widely praised edition of C.P. Snow's The Two Cultures (1993).He is Professor of Intellectual History and English Literature at Cambridge University, and a Fellow of the British Academy.