ABSTRACT
In The University in Ruins, Bill Readings portrayed a university environment in which market-led ‘discourses of excellence’ had replaced the traditional relationship between scholarship and society so that institutional purposes were ‘up for grabs’ (1996: 2). Over ten years on, this volume describes the voices and identities that have emerged in the new structures that have replaced the traditional university. This chapter uses the notion of performance to highlight the way that academics and students evaluate themselves and each other and orient to their perceived roles. The emphasis on performance destabilises the idea that identities are fixed and unchangeable, instead describing them as dialogic and emerging through interactions. This chapter paints (and then discusses) some imaginary scenes in the modern university, following a brief reprise of the factors that have influenced them. Its aim is to explore the ways in which lecturers, researchers and students struggle to know their purpose in the modern university and to ask how positive engagement between emerging identities is possible in contemporary academic contexts.
