March 25: Academic life in the fast lane (Vostal)

by lukevanryn

Photo Credit: chuckp via Compfight cc

As we continue our exploration of the conditions of contemporary academic work, speed remains a pressing issue. The acceleration of academic labour – through devices such as meetings, audits, grant applications and engagement activities – is consistent thread in both everyday discussions and literature in the field. In this article, Filip Vostal highlights the ambivalence of contemporary ‘academic time’.  He draws on interviews with British academics from a number of fields to support his argument for “unhasty time”:

a theoretical and politico-normative model that would be both an antipode to oppressive acceleration and yet attendant to acceleration’s energizing properties too (3).

We meet in the Pierre Gorman Room, 1888 Building, at 5pm this Tuesday.

[PDF] Vostal, F. (2014). Academic life in the fast lane: The experience of time and speed in British academia. Time and Society. doi: 10.1177/0961463X13517537