Hope, Rigging and Relativisations in the Making of Neoliberal Academia

Abstract

It is hardly news that neoliberal academia, to say the least, might not be the very best place for conducting critical research. Among the scholars with a critical bent, this is such a widely accepted fact that it basically constitutes a truism. However, it is one thing to say that contemporary academia is hostile to critical scholarship, but quite another to understand mechanisms pertaining to such a state of affairs. With the aim of illuminating the performativity of neoliberal academia, the article first examines how neoliberalism engages academic subjectivity, making it apparent that it is our hope of establishing a decent academic career at some point in the future that fosters the excessiveness of neoliberal academia. Second, by focusing on the rigging of academic positions, the article reminds us that the performativity of neoliberal academia is not at all foreign to the foreclosure of competitiveness. Third, while emphasising the importance of questioning the (in)existence of critical thinking in contemporary society, I analyse some viewpoints in academia that relativise the rigging of academic positions and the lack of critical scholarship in neoliberal academia.