Ronald Hartz – författare

In 2021, as part of a programme called Shaping for Excellence, bosses at the University of Leicester made redundant numerous scholars in what was simultaneously an attack on academic freedom and trade union organisation. The authors of Shaping for Mediocrity not only had front-row seats in the campaign against these mass redundancies, they were in the ring - both as targeted employees and as trade union officers and negotiators. Shaping for Mediocrity tells the inside story of these attacks and the campaign against them. It situates this story within a longer history of struggle to make the university a place where critical thinking is possible, showing how events in Leicester are both reflective of higher education in the UK following four decades of neoliberal 'reform' and a particularly egregious instance of the increasingly authoritarian management of public institutions such as universities.

This handbook gathers contributors from different disciplines of the social sciences, such as organization and management studies, sociology, anthropology and political science, to constructively discuss the kinds of transformations we need to see in coming years. These transformations concern the way we work, produce and consume but also the way in which we think about work, production and consumption. In an explicit rejection of the demand that the social sciences provide quick fixes, the contributors of this handbook discuss possible solutions in a critical and comprehensive manner and with an eye to both their environmental and societal implications. The handbook is divided into four parts: Opening up futures, Techno-economic transformations at work, Sustainable environmental transformation, and Radical democratic futures. The handbook is of interest to all critical academics interested in constructive suggestions regarding necessary societal transformations.

Die im Buch dargestellten Perspektiven orientieren sich an den Forschungslinien der Fakultät und greifen aktuelle Phänomene in den Bereichen: Innovations- und Technologieökonomie, Ökonomie der Arbeit, Nachhaltige Entwicklung wirtschaftlicher Systeme auf.?

Die Beiträge des Bandes diskutieren die Ästhetisierung und Inszenierung von Arbeit, Organisation und Management im Kontext der Diagnose eines ästhetischen Kapitalismus, einer fortschreitenden Kulturalisierung der Ökonomie und des Aufstiegs kreativer, immaterieller und ästhetischer Arbeit.