ABSTRACT
The difficulty of the task of providing an overview of the relationship between culture and financialization stems not only from the fact that both terms are hotly debated and seek to identify complex phenomena. This chapter examines the relationship between culture and financialization from several inter-related angles. All too often the cultural dimensions of financialization are sidelined in favor of what can appear to be more substantial and material discussions of its economic, political, geographic and sociological aspects. The example of the financialization of the university is a good illustration of the cultural impacts of financialization for a few reasons. The absent presence of financialization in John Lanchester’s work is, in a sense, symptomatic of the fundamental challenge for representing financialization, which is it, in part, a system for representing the world in a speculative fashion. Meanwhile, within universities themselves, financialization has also led to a recalibration of institutional cultures to better align with the overarching financialized paradigm.
