ABSTRACT
The dystopia we live in now makes Czarniawska’s ‘starting point for a conversation’ about the future of doctoral programmes in the previous chapter very timely.1 Naturally, the present always seems dystopian compared with any utopian future, but the way we live now is different. Our institutional position in academia limits what we, as intellectuals, can say under the current neoliberal regime of excellence. Reimagining doctoral education, Czarniawska urges us not to stop reflecting on this situation. Sharing in this quest, I propose to mess with it. In this chapter, after reviewing the current academic context of and students’ experiences in doctoral programmes in management, I present my utopian vision underpinned by the idea of reading and practising scholarship politically.
