ABSTRACT
Higher education in the period after postmodernism is haunted by darkness. Not a dystopian or apocalyptic darkness, but the darkness of the unknown (Bengtsen & Barnett, 2017a). Despite its projects of deconstruction and democracy, postmodernist agendas within higher education have been very much preoccupied with the present and its socio-political agendas and projections. In contrast, the darkness of higher education haunts us with a lust for and obsession with the future; what lies ahead in future societies and universities that do not yet exist. In contrast to the immanent political ontologies of postmodernism, the darkness of higher education signals the coming of the metaphysics of learning and institutional transcendence.
