Jenny Lewis – författare

Academia is an important site for producing knowledge, which is crucial in driving economies and societies around the globe at the beginning of the 21st century. Yet surprisingly little is known about how contemporary universities are shaped by the formal and multiple demands they face from national policy requirements, particularly performance measurement. What effects do these policies have on individual universities and the academics who work within them? While policy surely has impacts on institutions and academics, there are also numerous other things that shape academic life. This book’s starting point is that there are three main shaping forces that govern academia – intellectual curiosity, disciplinary traditions and research policy. Bringing these three levels together into a framework, this book examines how academia is governed, both formally and informally, bridging the different aspects of governing knowledge networks through a large multi-country study.Author Jenny Lewis uses a large empirical study of academics in three countries (Australia, Britain and New Zealand) and in the broad disciplinary areas of the humanities, social sciences and sciences, to demonstrate the analytical framework’s application. The book also offers some needed directions on what policy should and can do, providing a snapshot of contemporary academic life in different disciplines and in different countries, from the perspective of academics on the frontline.

To understand public policy decisions, it is imperative to understand the capacities of the individual actors who are making them, how they think and feel about their role, and what drives and motivates them. However, the current literature takes little account of this, preferring instead to frame the decisions as the outcomes of a rational search for value-maximising alternatives or the result of systematic and well-ordered institutional and organisational processes.Yet understanding how personal and emotional factors interact with broader institutional and organisational influences to shape the deliberations and behaviour of politicians and bureaucrats is paramount if we are to construct a more useful, nuanced and dynamic picture of government decision-making. This book draws on a variety of approaches to examine individuals working in contemporary government, from freshly-trained policy officers to former cabinet ministers and prime ministers. It provides important new insights into how those in government navigate their way through complex issues and decisions based on developed expertise that fuses formal, rational techniques with other learned behaviours, memories, emotions and practiced forms of judgment at an individual level.This innovative collection from leading academics across Australia, Europe, the United Kingdom and North America will be of great interest to researchers, educators, advanced students and practitioners working in the fields of political science, public management and administration, and public policy.

Academia is an important site for producing knowledge, which is crucial in driving economies and societies around the globe at the beginning of the 21st century. Yet surprisingly little is known about how contemporary universities are shaped by the formal and multiple demands they face from national policy requirements, particularly performance measurement. What effects do these policies have on individual universities and the academics who work within them? While policy surely has impacts on institutions and academics, there are also numerous other things that shape academic life. This book’s starting point is that there are three main shaping forces that govern academia – intellectual curiosity, disciplinary traditions and research policy. Bringing these three levels together into a framework, this book examines how academia is governed, both formally and informally, bridging the different aspects of governing knowledge networks through a large multi-country study.Author Jenny Lewis uses a large empirical study of academics in three countries (Australia, Britain and New Zealand) and in the broad disciplinary areas of the humanities, social sciences and sciences, to demonstrate the analytical framework’s application. The book also offers some needed directions on what policy should and can do, providing a snapshot of contemporary academic life in different disciplines and in different countries, from the perspective of academics on the frontline.

To understand public policy decisions, it is imperative to understand the capacities of the individual actors who are making them, how they think and feel about their role, and what drives and motivates them. However, the current literature takes little account of this, preferring instead to frame the decisions as the outcomes of a rational search for value-maximising alternatives or the result of systematic and well-ordered institutional and organisational processes. Yet understanding how personal and emotional factors interact with broader institutional and organisational influences to shape the deliberations and behaviour of politicians and bureaucrats is paramount if we are to construct a more useful, nuanced and dynamic picture of government decision-making. This book draws on a variety of approaches to examine individuals working in contemporary government, from freshly-trained policy officers to former cabinet ministers and prime ministers. It provides important new insights into how those in government navigate their way through complex issues and decisions based on developed expertise that fuses formal, rational techniques with other learned behaviours, memories, emotions and practiced forms of judgment at an individual level. This innovative collection from leading academics across Australia, Europe, the United Kingdom and North America will be of great interest to researchers, educators, advanced students and practitioners working in the fields of political science, public management and administration, and public policy.

Featured in the New Statesman Best Books of 2018Jenny Lewis relocates Gilgamesh to its earlier, oral roots in a Sumerian society where men and women were more equal, the reigning deity of Gilgamesh’s city, Uruk, was female (Inanna), only women were allowed to brew beer and keep taverns and women had their own language – emesal. With this shift of emphasis, Lewis captures the powerful allure of the world’s oldest poem and gives it a fresh dynamic while creating a fastpaced narrative for a new generation of readers.

Rich and various, From Base Materials ranges thematically from violence towards women, love in old age and surviving cancer to translations from Arabic and Russian and a topical re-imagining of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. The poems speak of formation, transformation and the struggles of the human spirit to transmute 'base matter' and accept mortality and frailty of the flesh with courage and compassion. For the long poem, 'Love in Old Age', Jenny Lewis says: 'Although it addresses a lover, it is really about multiple experiences of love (both real and imagined) throughout a long life and how I am as much a literary construct as a human individual. I have drawn on literature that has shaped me, including the Epic of Gilgamesh, early Celtic nature poetry and hermit poetry and, more recently, feminist writings such as those of Hélène Cixous.'