ABSTRACT
Inevitably, the structure of this book has had some arbitrariness attaching to it. A different structure could have been adopted for the volume; equally, even within the present structure, some of the chapters could happily have been placed in different parts of the volume. Such a level of openness and choice in the allocation of the chapters is inevitable for all of the chapters embody themes that criss-cross the volume. Just some of the large themes contained in this volume have been the following (the authors cited alongside the themes are simply indicative):
The dominance of the economic sphere in the contemporary shaping of the university (Morley; Díaz Villa; Dall’Alba);
The performative turn (Waghid; Masschelein & Simons);
The university understood as a set of spaces (Standaert; Masschelein & Simons);
The university as a global phenomenon (Morley; Chen & Lo; Peters, Giertzen & Ondercin; Díaz Villa; Standaert);
The common good and the public sphere (van Wyk & Higgs; Nixon; Peters, Gietzen & Ondercin; Masschelein & Simons; Chen & Lo);
Multiple knowledges (Wheelahan; Morley; Díaz Villa; Standaert);
The need for a theory of knowledge (Kavanagh; Maxwell; van Wyk & Higgs);
Sacred and profane knowledge (Masschelein & Simons; Morley; Wheelahan);
Wisdom (Kavanagh; Maxwell; Dall’Alba; Nixon);
The possibility of a recovery of liberal education (Rothblatt; Wheelahan; Chen & Lo; Standish);
Critical reason (Waghid; Maxwell; Masschelein & Simons);
The digital revolution (Rothblatt; Morley; Peters, Gietzen & Ondercin);
Distributed, networked universities (Rothblatt; Peters, Gietzen & Ondercin; Standaert);
Openness (Peters, Gietzen & Ondercin; Díaz Villa, Chen & Lo);
Re-covering teaching (Waghid; Wheelahan; Standish; Nixon; Masschelein & Simons).
