ABSTRACT

Despite claims of an ancient pedigree, British universities are by and large the product of the modern nation-state. There was little need for universities in preindustrial England, and the two institutions that existed were primarily responsible for training clergymen and teachers (Scott, 1995, pp. 11-12). The 19th-century universities-the Victorian civic age universities-were born in an imperial age and initiated to serve the nation-state. They were supported by the state and various industrial, commercial, and civic sponsors (p. 13). How has the British university, a modern and modernizing institution, changed to incorporate global and globalizing influences? How does it facilitate critical engagements with difference and otherness under conditions of globalization?