New Treason of the Intellectuals

Thomas Docherty is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Warwick

'Docherty’s uncompromising account of how the University has been betrayed and diminished by the "totalitarianism of market fundamentalism" should be essential reading for anyone interested in the fate of higher education. He gives an impassioned and powerful defence of intellectual work and its significance. More, the book’s intellectual depth and range – covering literature, philosophy, theory, history, art and popular culture – clearly demonstrates both the scholarly virtues for which he argues and his active dissent from complicity.'Robert Eaglestone, Professor of Contemporary Literature and Thought, Royal Holloway, University of London ‘Docherty’s book is an elegant and powerful defence of the university as a space of free inquiry, a space that is increasingly circumscribed. Most worrying is academics’ choice of a comfortable life and the rewards of office over the rigours and unease of the academic vocation. It will not be possible to complete a personal development performance review form with a clear conscience after reading this book.’John Holmwood, Professor of Sociology, University of Nottingham

• IntroductionPart I: Betrayal1 Private studyPart II: Crisis2 Titles and entitlements: why ‘university’?3 The exceptional and the ordinary4 Another brick in the wall5 Inflation, democracy, and populismPart III: Survival6 Origins, originality, and the privileges of nature7 Preliminary hypotheses towards a manifestoIndex