The Times Higher Education Supplement

PhDs by publication - compare and see points of intersection with THES debate on Article-Based PhDs

2007-09-19T09:54:00.001-07:00

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PhDs by publication

Contents (click to jump to a section)

By Stephen W. Draper, Department of Psychology, University of Glasgow.

Introduction

Rather recently, many universities have introduced a new mode for awarding a PhD -- "by publication". The idea is, that a researcher who has published at least as much as would go in a conventional PhD should be able to apply for the award of a PhD. I have recently acted as external examiner for two of these at two different universities, and naturally have also looked at my own university's regulations on this. This document presents my resulting personal opinions on the issue.

What seems clear is that the idea or spirit behind all of these is essentially the same, but the regulations are presently (in these early days) markedly different. Furthermore, reflection on the issues suggests that perhaps all universities should reconsider their regulations as it is easy to imagine and indeed often to find actual cases they cannot at present cover sensibly.

Symptoms

A simple first symptom of the divergence in regulations is to look at the required length of the accompanying document the candidate writes especially for the submission (called such things as "context document" or "critical essay" or "explanatory essay"). The four universities I have encountered required:

2-5 thousand words
10-15 thousand words
10-25 thousand words
No limit in the regulations, but the first candidate was more or less forced to write 30,000 words.

Remember this is not four universities chosen to make this point, but 100% of the accidental sample of four I have been concerned with. More examples (and more diversity) are in the References section below.

A closer look comparing different university's regulations reveals a second more fundamental area of variance and a real, unresolved, latent difficulty: there is not only no consensus on length, there is no real agreement on purpose or format. The confounding issue is whether the accompanying document is meant to be an application form, i.e. a bureaucratic document, written as a communication to the examiners, directly arguing about the worth of the submission (even though there is nothing comparable to this in a conventional PhD submission), or whether it is meant to be an academic document that goes in the library as a communication written for other scholars.

One of the underlying causes of this confusion within and between attempts to write regulations for this new mode of PhD constitutes the third problem. It applies much more widely than to this topic, but has particular importance here. It is apparent that in drafting the regulations the authors were thinking about what the examiners would need and find convenient, and were not thinking about what would be lodged in the library as the permanent contribution to knowledge by the candidate for other scholars round the world. I interpret this in turn as a case of specifying one possible process (in fact an arbitrary and probably non-optimal selection of one) when the actually important thing is to specify the properties of the end product, and to use the examiners to make a judgement and certification on whether those properties were achieved in each case. This is particularly important for a higher degree in research (in contrast, say, to a road driving test); and particularly important for a new mode where the people drafting the regulations have no experience of the ways the intention might in fact be satisfied. In the light of this failing, I will next discuss the issues from first principles. We do not know if the regulation authors failed to consider first principles, but their failure to state them has demonstrably led to bad regulations; and, I shall argue, has furthermore left their universities unable to cope with cases they almost certainly would wish to cope with. In fact universities seem not to publish anything about the purpose of PhDs by publication. This can only slow the evolution of regulations to better forms, while leaving candidates at the mercy of divergent interpretations by examiners and supervisors.

First principles

What does the university really want, academically, from this new mode of PhD?

Comparability: Does the work presented satisfy all the essential criteria of a conventional PhD, though by different superficial means?
Will there be a permanent library record, accessible by scholars round the world, in some way of comparable utility for those scholars to conventional PhDs?

Here I offer one way of expressing the essential properties of a conventional PhD. The regulations in each university, and the forms examiners must use, express these in various slightly different ways, as you may verify for yourself. However I perceive there as being very widespread consensus in the academic community (at least in the UK and USA) as to the real essential requirements.

It must constitute a contribution to knowledge. That is, it must be original (offering something not offered before), though that might be very different in different cases e.g. new empirical work, new deductive work e.g . a mathematical proof, new arguments, etc.
It must show awareness of, and give the reader a lot of support in forming their own judgement on this, where it stands in relation to other published work: what its nearest neighbours in the literature are, in what ways it is distinctive (original, different, ....). Thus a literature review and a critical self-evaluation are more or less essential in fulfilling this requirement.
It should be a "thesis" i.e. a single coherent argument, with all the components (empirical work, research design, literature review, critical self-evaluation) all subordinated to, related to, and serving to support, this single argument.
There is no bar whatsoever on re-using the candidate's work in both publications and in a PhD; but they mustn't use same work in more than one degree submission.

We might note in passing that there is an implicit divergence in aim between the new mode of PhD by publication on the one hand, and on the other the new tendency to require explicit coursework training on research for PhDs and the "new route" PhDs by coursework. The former is about judging by results alone, while the latter are tending towards judging by training not research contribution.

Second principles

What does this mean in practice for an examiner asked to make the judgement about a submission for a PhD by publication? There are probably three main implied issues: quantity, quality, and integration over a large scope of work.

Quantity. An average conventional PhD may result in one journal paper (though many result in none). A researcher keen to push publications might get three out of a PhD. Some PhDs are turned into one book. So any PhD by publication that submits more than three papers has easily satisfied the quantity implicit criterion.
Quality. If the publications were peer-refereed then an examiner would be in a very poor position to argue against them of being of adequate quality for a PhD. To do so would be to show the examiner as preferring their personal opinions to those of the candidate's peers.
If the publications are in several different journals (or other refereed outlets) then that is a further good point, as it reduces the possibility of the work being accepted only by some small clique, or any possibility of cronyism.
If the publication outlets are of dubious quality or respectability, or are not peer-reviewed (e.g. they are books), then the examiners must judge each more carefully. However they cannot ask, under current typical regulations, for a rewrite if they feel the work is good but its reporting flawed.
Scale, scope, integration. If quantity and quality are satisfied, the only remaining issue is whether the candidate is capable of taking a view wider than that required in a single paper: of relating and integrating the body of work as a whole. In my view, that is the main purpose of the accompanying specially written essay. However if a book has been submitted as part of the published work, this is probably not an issue -- yet the regulations do not allow for this. Where a book is submitted, the essay is either unnecessary or else might often be much shorter. In one of the PhDs I examined, the candidate mentioned that someone had already asked him if his book (part of his submission) was in fact a book from a PhD. It seems clear to me that current regulations show no awareness of the kind of submissions that have already in fact been made in some places.

Reference cases, real and imagined

In my view, more thought should be given to the range of submissions that might appear. In this section I will sketch some cases that could be used to indicate the range that should be considered. The response should be to change university regulations. This might be to change the regulations for PhD by publication; but it might instead or in addition be to introduce additional modes for awarding a PhD. At one extreme there might be a proliferation of modes; at the other, a single general set of criteria and more onus on examiners to deal with each case separately and the power to make rather different demands on candidates. Here are four kinds of case, the first in three variants.

1a. "Dear sir, I have been awarded the Nobel prize, and, as the citation mentioned, largely on the basis of my paper [ref]. I therefore hereby apply for a PhD by publication." Any university that turned this down would lay itself open to ridicule on the front pages of newspapers. Why should such a researcher have to write a 25,000 word essay when the argument, giving overwhelming reasons for the award, can be expressed in one sentence?

You might say that this is very rare, and that in such rare cases the university might immediately and reasonably respond by awarding an honorary DSc or some such. However essentially similar cases may be less dramatic, but still compelling.

1b. "Dear sir, my paper [ref] has become the most cited paper in the area of X in the last 5 years, and is widely regarded as having created a new field of research. I therefore hereby apply for a PhD by publication."

1c. This is a real case. David Huffman invented in 1952 what was soon called "Huffman coding" as his final year undergraduate project. (Try typing "huffman coding" into a search engine, or look here or here. Huffman coding has a variable codeword length, allowing text compression; but despite this, no codeword is a prefix of any other, so simple unambiguous decoding is still straightforward.) It became adopted in engineering practice, and taught in undergraduate texts. Should he have been eligible for a PhD by publication without further work?

These three scenarios raise several issues. Impact on a field is not a relevant criterion for a conventional PhD because impact cannot have emerged when it is submitted, but it is clearly of possible relevance to a PhD by publication. If the impact is clear and large, is it appropriate to demand a large essay, when the compelling argument for impact can be made in a sentence or a page? And if there is impact, then the need for critical self-appraisal seems of little importance since others have clearly done this. Do we want a PhD by publication that would not be automatically awarded to the most important research contributors? Should we insist on candidates jumping through academic hoops, even in cases where that has no value at all for their contribution to knowledge?

2. A conventional PhD is often turned into a book. If a published book is submitted, should this be eligible by itself? It seems clear that it should be, without any accompanying essay (contrary to many current regulations). On the other hand if but only if the examiners demand it, it should be open to them to demand after all an accompanying essay to cover any academic deficiencies they perceive, particularly if the book were aimed at an audience that wasn't essentially academic. This seems a clear argument that the minimum size of the accompanying essay should be zero, that a single book should be quite enough in quantity, but that it might (or might not) require a substantial accompanying essay or commentary.

3. A set of articles published in refereed journals, plus an essay providing a critical overview discussing their relationship to an overall theme or research programme. This seems the only case current regulations clearly envisage. Such a case does NOT really need any argument about why this constitutes a PhD: that would be clearly carried implicitly by the set of academic documents submitted, which would also make a coherent submission to the library.

4. A set of papers that have been published, but which are not academic (enough) in nature. I have heard secondhand of a case of this being submitted. (Secondhand i.e. I spoke to someone directly involved in such a case.) This is quite likely to occur in fields such as marketing, business, or perhaps school teaching, where there are many publications for practitioners. The examiners might feel in many such cases that there were a significant set of publications, there was useful empirical work, there were novel ideas and a contribution to knowledge, there was impact on the field -- but the writing reporting it was not academic e.g. it was not self-critical, or did not adequately relate the work to other published literature. One reasonable response to this type of case might be to allow another new mode for a PhD, where the candidate had to write a full thesis (say 80,000 words) but did not have to satisfy the time and fee requirements (i.e. take at least 3 years etc.). Such candidates would have already done all the practical work, and had all the ideas: they would just need to do much MORE writing than the currently foreseen "explanatory essay".

One candidate's experience

Chronology

Enrolled.
Successfully completed viva 18 months later.
Summary document of 30,000 words was required (supporting books and journal papers 300,000 words).
"Summary" document structured as conventional PhD thesis.

Reflection

First among my peers to obtain degree by this route.

Lots of peer apathy to deal with

Managing the end-to-end process is essential (do not leave to the management: do it yourself)

Get the politics right (find supervisors who share your views and aspirations)

Undertake supervisor sessions outside working hours (quality time and beer go together)

Do not accept verbal agreements: get things in writing

Provide citations to back up your work

Although my summary document was based on 5 written books and 16 journal papers I was required to write it as a conventional thesis - I guess because we are a new University, legislation plays a part and managers do not like being exposed.

Conclusions

Here I will summarise my suggestions for change. Even if you completely disagree with them, that alone shows that current regulations do not express your views and communicate them to the candidates and examiners, and so that the regulations need substantial change.

In the light of the above considerations, I myself now think regulations for awarding PhDs by publication need to be made much more flexible. Furthermore they should consider more carefully and explicitly the two functions of producing a document for the library, and perhaps a separate and additional document for the examiners. These reflect the two actual needs: producing academic content for scholars to use later, and producing an argument about why this particular set of documents should be taken as adequate for a PhD award, allowing arguments such as impact evidence that do not themselves belong in an academic document but which will certainly and rightly influence examiners, and which necessarily have no precedent in the process for awarding conventional PhDs.

Both these documents should be allowed to be almost any length (though of course example cases with example lengths would be very useful). Thus both the Nobel prize case and the prototypical four articles plus substantial critical essay linking them into a unified research theme would require only a one-sentence covering letter, while other cases might usefully have a longer document addressed to the examiners. For the accompanying academic document, both the case of huge impact factor and the case of a book being submitted might require zero length, while at the other extreme research published non-academically would require a full thesis-length document.

At least some universities only offer this route to employees, not to outside candidates. This doesn't seem sensible. Firstly, it creates the impression that this is a fix and lower standards will be applied for "our" people. Secondly, and on the contrary, all of the examples I've seen so far are far above the average PhD in terms of research contributions to their field: it can only add to a university's reputation by raising the average standard of their PhDs.

On the other hand, someone suggested to me they'd like to get a second doctorate by this route. This, in contrast, seems to me to be something that should be barred by the regulations but usually isn't. Any practising researcher is likely to generate enough publications for a PhD every few years: it doesn't make much sense to award strings of doctorates to the same person. The point of a PhD by publication, it seems to me, is to give formal university recognition for research to those without any.

More than in any other area in universities, PhDs by research should surely be about recognising attainment: about judging the outcome and product, regardless of the means and process by which it was arrived at. The regulations should reflect this, and allow a wider range of cases.

Further points (Aug 2007)

A few somewhat different points have emerged.

THES (Times Higher Educational Supplement) 17 Aug 2007 p.2 reports that Stirling are going to allow "normal" full-time PhD students to qualify by publications, rather than dissertation.

Reported comments on this revolved around the point that it needs to be required and enforced that the candidate was the major or leading contributor on the essential publications included. This interacts with differences between disciplines. Those like Sociology that put a high value on different "voices" of researchers are unlikely to be keen on allowing group publications at all, while those in big science where all work revolves around hugely expensive equipment and hence collaboration, this is simply acknowledging the collaborative reality behind current PhDs.

THES (Times Higher Educational Supplement) 17 Aug 2007 p.13 has an opinion piece discussing whether candidates should be allowed to hire professional proof readers or editors of their writing.

Should we worry about plagiarism in PhDs in general? The usual examination arrangements of a viva are well placed to detect copying without attribution from published sources. However perhaps we should worry about someone who is generally able, but in fact has not done the research, hiring someone else (or more likely, using a family member) to do the research and write it up; while they read and master the content. They would be able to perform excellently in the viva, and would have the research skill of understanding others' research in the area in depth; but would not have shown the ability to create original research themselves. The current arrangements are not likely to detect this. A PhD by publication is somewhat better defended against this than a traditional PhD (more pieces of work, more referees), except that in a traditional PhD, informally the research group is likely to know what practical work has been done by whom. However there is nothing in current PhD regulations that enforces and tests being the main intellect or decision maker in the work.

Thus we should perhaps ask ourselves again what a PhD is, and is not, meant to certify; and in doing so, dwell on an argument mentioned in the THES pieces above: that a PhD candidate is essentially a manager of a process (of producing and publishing research). They are not required to do everything themselves: make their own pens, assemble their own word processors. So what is it essential that they do themselves? Firstly, to understand, and be able to present, the research work. The writing and viva are well designed to test this, in both traditional and by-publication PhD processes. That is one requirement for managing the process. But do we require them to be able to make the main decisions? We don't directly test for this; and it might be hard to reconcile with big research teams where collaboration is an absolute pre-requisite even for the most eminent scientists. There are two problems here: firstly articulating how much freedom and originality is required, given that outside constraints are equally part of research life. Secondly, assuring ourselves that someone else didn't do the "important" part of the work for the candidate.

References

A few example University Regulations for PhDs by publication. (These were put together 11 January 2003.)

Edinburgh. "Critical Review" at least 10,000 words, but not more than 25,000 words.

Glamorgan "overview" (no length mentioned). [Now here 23 Aug 07]

University of Glasgow. Download this PDF document, and go to page 80 of this electronic document (as counted by Acrobat), labelled in the text as p.626 and GR80. "explanatory essay of 2-5,000 words". [Now GR89 23 Aug 07]

Lancaster "a supporting paper" no length mentioned.

Sheffield Hallam University "5,000 word critical appraisal"

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Hazem Azmy
School of Theatre Studies,
University of Warwick

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______________________

"The man who finds his homeland sweet is still a tender beginner; he to whom every soil is as his native one is already strong; but he is perfect to whom the entire world is as a foreign land." - HUGO OF ST. VICTOR

Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole - Book Review

2007-07-20T05:01:00.001-07:00

The Times Higher Education Supplement
20 July 2007

Why shop till we drop?

Keith Tester
Published: 20 July 2007

	Title: Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole

	Author: Benjamin R. Barber

	Reviewer: Keith Tester

	Publisher: Norton

	ISBN: 9780393049619

	Pages: 406

	Price: £16.99

	Title: Consuming Life

	Author: Zygmunt Bauman

	Reviewer: Keith Tester

	Publisher: Polity Press

	ISBN: 9780745639796 and 40020

	Pages: 160

	Price: £50.00 and £14.99

Rampant consumerism blights all our lives, Keith Tester discovers.

The high-street clothing chain Primark sells copies of the latest catwalk styles at pocket-money prices, and its lines seem to change every week. If the bargain is not grasped today, it has probably disappeared for ever. Primark is about the immediate now; buy now, pay now without worrying about the credit card bill (or the workers who make these suspiciously cheap garments) and wear now because the jacket will be ludicrously out of date next week. A branch opened at London's Marble Arch in April. Queues stretched for miles, people were hurt and doors knocked off their hinges in the mad rush to get the style bargain of the moment. Some shoppers came to London especially to be there, and news coverage was immense. Some of the shoppers may have been a paid claque, but if Benjamin R. Barber and Zygmunt Bauman are right, what happened at Primark highlights some of the most profound issues in contemporary culture.

Barber argues that because all the needs of the sufficiently affluent have now been met, capitalism can reproduce itself only with the stimulation of immediate consumer wants for unnecessary products. The best way of achieving this is by infantilising consumers and making them live in and for the now, like children. Infantilisation is literal in that marketers are increasingly focusing their attention on children, but it is also metaphorical.

According to Barber, consumers are infantilised by "capitalist consumerism" that nurtures "a culture of impetuous consumption necessary to selling puerile goods in a developed world that has few genuine needs". "I want" replaces "I need" (and there is no place here for a "we"; after all, you might take what I want, just as the Primark shoppers know that there are not enough jackets to go around). "Want" satisfaction is about now, whereas "needs" satisfaction is long term. What Barber calls the "infantilist ethos" inverts the Protestant ethic that he sees as the heroic founding principle of American capitalism, and it stresses the easy over the hard, the simple over the complex, and the fast over the slow. "As the Protestant ethos once shaped a culture conducive to work and investment, the infantilist ethos today shapes a culture conducive to laxity, shopping and spending".

Bauman reaches similar conclusions, albeit from a different direction. Whereas Barber convinces by marshalling a body of evidence that is overwhelming, Bauman adopts a strategy that encourages dialogue through the development of an ideal type of consumer society, pulling a diverse range of empirical material into a coherent picture that might then be used to cast light on how we live today. His methodology is Weberian. Consumerism is "a type of social arrangement that results from recycling mundane, permanent and so to speak 'regime-neutral' human wants, desires and longings into the principal propelling and operating force of society". Yet consumerism can operate in this way only if "wants, desires and longings" are always left unsatisfied. It cannot possibly allow for a moment in which the consumer can be fulfilled. Primark needs its shoppers to return to the store once they realise that what they have just so joyously purchased will be stigmatised as out of date when next week's stock arrives.

This explains why new styles and products are so desirable. They come with the promise that they will bring about satisfaction, if only for a week. Consequently, Bauman argues, consumerism is founded on a lie. What it promises is impossible for consumers to enjoy: "The realm of hypocrisy stretching between popular beliefs and the realities of consumers' lives is a necessary condition of a properly functioning society of consumers." The hypocrisy is disguised by the felicity with which the now-discredited purchases can be discarded and, as Bauman observes, waste disposal is a growth area of consumer capitalism. Consumers rarely have to pay for delivery, but are happy to pay to get rid of what is no longer desired: "It is getting rid that now conditions happiness; and happiness, as everyone would agree, needs to be paid for." Primark once again makes the point. It produces the quickly obsolete, and consumers fight for the privilege of disposing of the soon-to-be-waste because what they have bought only has value now.

Barber's and Bauman's sights are trained on targets much larger than shopping, however. Both use consumerism as a point of entry into a fully blown civilisational critique that encompasses relationships, politics and values. According to Barber, infantilisation means that men and women are prevented from growing up and remain stuck in a state of narcissism in which satisfaction is sought through a marketplace attitude towards goods and people. This causes a pathological reaction in which the self is subsumed into what is out there, and it becomes inadequate (after all, if brands or some people are so popular, they must deliver to others what they promise - the problem must be with me). Consumerism puts at the core of contemporary civilisation the lie that systemic deceits are individual failings. For Bauman, it is in this way that contemporary society turns around Freud's argument that civilisation is only possible through the external repression and deferral of immediate desire. On the contrary; this is a form of civilisation that is able to let desire run rife so long as it is channelled into shopping for goods or other people, and as long as the individual feels himself to be the cause of all failure.

Is there any way out of living this lie? Here Barber and Bauman move apart. Barber turns tentatively to pockets of value that have managed to remain immune to infantilisation, such as religion (although he does not make enough of the infantilisation of religion that is called fundamentalism), and he ends with the announcement that: "We need democratic sovereignty to moderate market anarchy and market monopoly." However, Barber notes that he has no formula that might bring this situation about. Indeed, the logic of his book is that it can never happen because infantilisation leads to men and women who are not attuned to the long-haul politics of democracy. Consequently Bauman's approach might be more useful. He does not give comforting answers. Rather he writes books that usually end with a paradox, and this one is no exception. The concern with being up to date is beginning to run more quickly than the human ability to be up to date, and this can only result in the worst irresponsibility.

Barber and Bauman have written books that are engaged and important antidotes to the platitudes of the times. They know that while consumerism can be pleasurable, it can never be the basis for a responsible and honest human being in the world. These two books can be hard and complex, and they ought to be read slowly because only then will their nuances appear. They encourage the very human virtues they seek to recover from a world otherwise only concerned with the easy, the simple and the fast.

Keith Tester is professor of cultural sociology, Portsmouth University.

--
Hazem Azmy
School of Theatre Studies, University of Warwick

http://hazemazmy.8m.net/home.html
http://hazemazmy.8m.net/cyberbabel.html
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aitheatre/
______________________

"The man who finds his homeland sweet is still a tender beginner; he to whom every soil is as his native one is already strong; but he is perfect to whom the entire world is as a foreign land." - HUGO OF ST. VICTOR

The UK Elephant in the Room

2006-09-28T18:02:00.000-07:00

Anyone noticed the real elephant in the room?

David Runciman
Published: 29 September 2006

Forget Iraq, the legitimacy of a government built on little electoral support is the biggest political issue, says David Runciman.

Tony Blair went into his final Labour Party conference as one of the undisputed titans of British electoral history - deliverer to his party of three resounding parliamentary majorities in succession. The fact that he is in effect being driven from office within 18 months of the third of these victories strikes many of his supporters as not merely bizarre but almost inexplicable. Yet it is only inexplicable if one assumes that one decisive parliamentary majority is as good as any other. The truth is that Blair's third victory was different, not just from his first two, but from any other of recent times. It was achieved on a bare minimum of popular support, just over 35 per cent of just over 61 per cent of the electorate. So if you put 100 random adults in a room, you would find that only 21 of them voted Labour in 2005.

This, not Iraq, is the "elephant in the room" of British politics. Before the most recent election, there was serious talk at the highest levels of Government about a possible "crisis of legitimacy" if a substantial parliamentary majority was achieved on the basis of minimal voter enthusiasm. But when this happened, all such talk was forgotten in the excitement of watching what the Tories would do next and trying to decide how to respond.

However, the fact remains that the support of barely one fifth of the adult population is a very slender basis on which to seek to exercise the awesome discretionary powers of a British prime minister possessed of a sizeable majority in the Commons. Moreover, these are powers that Blair has not merely wished to employ to the full, but to which he has sought to add by claiming the further right to preordain the moment of his departure. It is this that has produced his personal crisis of legitimacy.

Nevertheless, for all its peculiarity, the predicament of the British Government is hardly unprecedented. Indeed, trying to govern on the basis of limited numbers of actual votes was the steady state of politics throughout the 19th century. This was the case even after successive reforms of the franchise, when governments had to sustain themselves on the electoral support of relatively small pluralities of the adult population (post-1884, 40 per cent of adult males and all women were still disenfranchised). In these circumstances, it was understood that governmental legitimacy depended on not overstating the significance of mere electoral success.JGovernments also had to rest their authority on the constant endeavour to fashion coalitions of the willing in Cabinet and in Parliament. The allocation of seats after a general election could only ever be the starting point, not the decisive end point, of such attempts.

This solution to its crisis of legitimacy is not available to the current Labour Government, even if it wanted it (and the aborted coup against Blair suggests that some members do) - you cannot play 19th-century politics in 21st-century circumstances, when the tiniest hint of party discord gets splashed across the 24-hour media and the privacy the Victorian elite needed to fashion and refashion governing coalitions beyond the prying eyes of the electorate has long since disappeared. It would be wrong to overstate the gentlemanly detachment of mid to late 19th-century politicians - their world was much closer to the hypocritical populism laid bare in Anthony Trollope's Palliser novels than to the liberal fantasies of John Stuart Mill, who wished Parliament to become a crucible of enlightened and independent opinion. But even in Trollope's world, the fuel of parliamentary infighting was the universal recognition that general elections were not everything - and it is that understanding that is now gone.

In its absence, the only plausible alternative to Labour's current predicament is reform of the electoral system to produce governing coalitions that better reflect the distribution of votes. But it is striking that, for all the weakness of his position, none of Blair's opponents is pushing for this. Neither Gordon Brown nor Tory leader David Cameron wishes to replace the system that produced Blair; they merely wish to replace him at its helm. The Liberal Democrats, traditional champions of proportional representation, see that the present system offers them the prospect of holding the balance of power after the next election in a hung Parliament, and they do not want to do anything to rock the boat before then.

So the roots of Labour's crisis of legitimacy will remain unspoken at their conference, while the attempts of those such as MP Clare Short to ventilate the issue will continue to be passed over with disdain. Meanwhile, the parliamentary plotters will carry on plotting behind the scenes, as though there still were a "behind the scenes", and as though independent-minded parliamentarians still determined the government's legitimacy. In the end, something will have to give: 19th-century politics in the 21st century simply does not work.

David Runciman is a politics lecturer at Cambridge University and author of The Politics of Good Intentions, published by Princeton University Press, £18.95.

--
Hazem Azmy
Theatre Studies, University of Warwick

http://hazemazmy.8m.net/home.html
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http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aitheatre/
______________________

"I think it would be a very good idea!" - MOHANDAS GANDHI, in reply to a reporter's question "What do you think of Western Civilization?"

UK Universities' "War on Terror"?

2006-09-24T08:53:00.000-07:00

Should we give peas a chance?

Maria Misra
The Times Higher Education Supplement
22 September 2006

Is the Oxbridge interview the new weapon in the War against Terror, ponders Maria Misra

The revelation that one of the recent plane bomb suspects had been head of the Islamic Society at London Metropolitan University has once again put university recruitment procedures under the spotlight, although for rather more exciting reasons than usual. For, according to Anthony Glees, director of the Centre for Intelligence and Security at Brunel University, campuses are now "more of a security threat than mosques".

Universities, he claims, know too little about those they admit. His rather bizarre solution is a return to face-to-face interviews with all applicants. These will presumably be conducted by academics adept in the mysterious art of diagnosing a person's political proclivities by their dress and demeanour.

This version of the interview is a strange throwback to the ethos of Imperial Britain, where the cult of the interview predominated. The reason was simple: recruiters were just as concerned with candidates' "character" as with their abilities; and it was impossible to determine whether someone was a "chap" merely by glancing at his qualifications.

Chappishness was measured by all sorts of intangibles that only the trained eye and ear could detect. Thus applicants for Oxbridge, the officer class and the colonial services faced a battery of social tests, thinly disguised as interviews. In the colonies, horsemanship was a key part of one's final interview. A similar outlook underpinned Oxbridge fellowship interviews, where, until fairly recently, dining was a compulsory element in the whole process, and peas tended to feature rather prominently on the menu.

The rather dubious origins of the Oxbridge admissions interview have cast a long shadow, and for many years the interview was in rather bad odour, thought to privilege the poised and sweet-tongued over the rougher diamonds from the state sector. Meanwhile, academic research confirmed long-held suspicions about the subjective nature of interviews. It seems that, even when bolstered by psychometric testing, interviews amount to little more than "gut feeling". Despite all this, Oxbridge colleges maintained the interview as an essential part of the admissions process.

However, in recent years interviewing has become rather easier to defend. In an age when so many have impeccable paper qualifications, interviews have become an extremely useful means of differentiating the excellent from the merely good. Interviewing has been professionalised and standardised, with training now compulsory. The old-style, amateurish Oxbridge interview of yore is only a hazy memory. Interviews are now generally combined with challenging oral comprehension passages. These have proved useful in assessing candidates and are more reliable than their submitted written material.

Nevertheless the Oxbridge interview will continue to be controversial, and every year academics quake with trepidation that a transcript of one of their interviews will appear in the Daily Mail, as it did a few years ago for one unfortunate Cambridge don caught in a journalistic sting. But now when I am challenged to defend it I can deploy the killer argument provided by Professor Glees and explain that the Oxbridge admissions interview is, in fact, the new frontline in the War against Terror.

Maria Misra is a lecturer in modern history at Oxford University.

The food you eat may change your genes for life (New Scientist Magazine)

2005-11-17T13:37:00.000-08:00

Check out this link: http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/mg18825264.800

From issue 2526 of New Scientist magazine, 17 November 2005, page 12

The food you eat may change your genes for life

17 November 2005
NewScientist.com news service
Alison Motluk

IT SOUNDS like science fiction: simply swallowing a pill, or eating a specific food supplement, could permanently change your behaviour for the better, or reverse diseases such as schizophrenia, Huntington's or cancer.

Yet such treatments are looking increasingly plausible. In the latest development, normal rats have been made to behave differently just by injecting them with a specific amino acid. The change to their behaviour was permanent. The amino acid altered the way the rat's genes were expressed, raising the idea that drugs or dietary supplements might permanently halt the genetic effects that predispose people to mental or physical illness.

It is not yet clear whether such interventions could work in humans. But there is good reason to believe they could, as evidence mounts that a range of simple nutrients might have such effects.

Two years ago, researchers led by Randy Jirtle of Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, showed that the activity of a mouse's genes can be influenced by food supplements eaten by its mother just prior to, or during, very early pregnancy ( New Scientist, 9 August 2003, p 14). Then last year, Moshe Szyf, Michael Meaney and colleagues at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, showed that mothers could influence the way a rat's genes are expressed after it has been born. If a rat is not licked, groomed and nursed enough by its mother, chemical tags known as methyl groups are added to the DNA of a particular gene.

The affected gene codes for the glucocorticoid receptor gene, expressed in the hippocampus of the brain. The gene helps mediate the animal's response to stress, and in poorly raised rats, the methylation damped down the gene's activity. Such pups produced higher levels of stress hormones and were less confident exploring new environments. The effect lasted for life ( Nature Neuroscience, vol 7, p 847).

Now the team has shown that a food supplement can have the same effect on well-reared rats at 90 days old - well into adulthood. The researchers injected L-methionine, a common amino acid and food supplement, into the brains of well-reared rats. The amino acid methylated the glucocorticoid gene, and the animals' behaviour changed. "They were almost exactly like the poorly raised group," says Szyf, who announced his findings at a small meeting on environmental epigenomics earlier this month in Durham, North Carolina.

Though the experiment impaired well-adjusted animals, the opposite should be possible, and Szyf has already shown that a chemical called TSA that is designed to strip away methyl groups can turn a badly raised rat into a more normal one.

No one is envisaging injecting supplements into people's brains, but Szyf says his study shows how important subtle nutrients and supplements can be. "Food has a dramatic effect," he says. "But it can go both ways," he cautions. Methionine, for instance, the supplement he used to make healthy rats stressed, is widely available in capsule form online or in health-food stores - and the molecules are small enough to get into the brain via the bloodstream.

Rob Waterland from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, who attended the meeting, says Szyf's ideas are creating a buzz, as they suggest that methylation can influence our DNA well into adulthood. A huge number of diseases are caused by changes to how our DNA is expressed, and this opens up new ways of thinking about how to prevent and treat them, he says.

But Waterland points out there is still much work to be done. Substances like methionine and TSA are, he says, a "sledgehammer approach", in that they are likely to demethylate lots of genes, and we don't even know which they will affect. But he speculates that techniques such as "RNA-directed DNA methylation", so far tested only in plants but theoretically possible in mammals, may allow us to target such methylation much more precisely.

Life sentence
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18424715.800
30 October 2004
Atkins diet could lower female fertility
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6085
29 June 2004
You are what your mother ate, suggests study
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn4017
04 August 2003

Weblinks

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______________________

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www.AskPhilosophers.org: A Site that puts the talents and knowledge of philosophers at the service of the general public

2005-11-05T18:06:00.000-08:00

Check out this link: http://www.thes.co.uk/current_edition/story.aspx?story_id=2025828

Log on to discuss why we are here

Anthea Lipsett

The Times Higher Education Supplement
Published: 04 November 2005

Have you ever wanted to know what wasn't art, or the difference between ethics and morality, or if, assuming there is no afterlife, it's irrational to fear death? Now members of the public with a desire to have such profound questions answered can turn to a website launched last month by professional philosophers.

The idea behind AskPhilosophers.org, hosted by Amherst College in the US, is to put the skills and knowledge of philosophers at the service of the public.

Already signed up are Simon Blackburn and Peter Lipton, both of Cambridge University; Roger Crisp, fellow and tutor in philosophy at St Anne's College, Oxford University; and Gabriel Segal, head of the philosophy department at King's College London.

Professor Lipton, head of Cambridge University's department of history and philosophy of science, said the project created a "philosophers' commune".

"It's very important that philosophers get out more. It's a profession, and we have highly technical literature - but we are asking questions that lots of people are interested in," he said. "I find it refreshing to answer questions that are non-academic."

The tricky part was writing clearly enough for a general audience while not boring the other philosophers on the panel, Professor Lipton said. "It's a challenge, but it really is fun. I'm addicted."

The site was set up last month by Alexander George, chairman of Amherst's philosophy faculty. So far, the 36 panellists have answered 380 questions.

Of more than 1,100 questions submitted since the site's launch, some 360 were posted, and they drew almost 500 responses. Questions run the gamut of existential angst: why are people sometimes mean; why is stupidity not painful; and is happiness possible?

anthea.lipsett@thes.co.uk

Art, life and death: sample of postings on AskPhilosophers.org

Q: Assuming there is no afterlife, is it irrational to fear death?

A: It's irrational to fear what death will feel like if you know it won't feel like anything; but it doesn't follow that it is irrational to fear death. It's not irrational to look forward to the pleasures of living, and if we know that death will take these away, the fear of losing those pleasures doesn't seem irrational either.

Peter Lipton, head of department of history and philosophy of science, Cambridge University

Q: Are there arguments against gay marriage that are not religious, bigoted or both?

A: There are no good arguments meeting that description.

Gabriel Segal

Q: What is not art?

A: Lots of things: the orange in front of me, the bus outside my window, George Bush, the number four, Palo Duro Canyon and so on.

What makes something not art calls for a definition of art. Once we knew what the definition was, we could determine what did not fall into the category. I suspect this is not the best way to go.

Aaron Meskin, lecturer in philosophy, Leeds University

Q: What is the difference between ethics and morality?

A: A distinction is sometimes drawn between ethics as concerning all the values or goods that might be instantiated in a person's life (wellbeing, friendship, virtue of character, aesthetic qualities and so on), and morality as the narrower domain of moral obligation only (right and wrong, what is forbidden and permitted and so on).

Roger Crisp, Uehiro fellow and tutor in philosophy at St Anne's College, Oxford University

Q: Should education be a means to an end?

A: I do not see anything wrong with using education as a means to an end, such as when I suffer through a dreary course on car mechanics so that I can learn how to fix my own engine.

Having said this, I don't think education is always merely a means to an end.

Not only can it be fulfilling to learn certain things even if this knowledge is put to no practical use, but the very process of educating oneself can be fulfilling independently of any value practical or otherwise in the things learnt.

Joseph G. Moore

______________________

Hazem Azmy

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______________________

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The world's top arts and humanities universities

2005-10-26T09:55:00.000-07:00

Check out this link: http://www.thes.co.uk/statistics/international_comparisons/2005/arts_and_humanities.aspx

International comparisons The world's top arts and humanities universities

2005 rank	2004 rank	Institution	Country	Peer score
1	1	Harvard University	US	100
2	2	Oxford University	UK	84.7
3	5	Cambridge University	UK	81.2
4	3	University of California, Berkeley	US	77.8
5	4	Yale University	US	77.4
6	7	Beijing University	China	70.9
7	6	Princeton University	US	69.2
8	49	Melbourne University	Australia	60
9	10	London School of Economics	UK	58.7
10	30	Australian National University	Australia	56.7
11	8	Columbia University	US	56.5
12	12	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	US	53.5
13	11	Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne	France	52.9
14	-	La Sapienza University, Rome	Italy	51.6
15	32	McGill University	Canada	50.9
16	9	Tokyo University	Japan	50.5
17	14	University of Texas at Austin	US	50.2
18=	23	Copenhagen University	Denmark	47.7
18=	15	Kyoto University	Japan	47.7
20	25	Natl Autonomous Univ of Mexico	Mexico	46.9
21=	39	University College London	UK	46.7
21=	40	Queen Mary, University of London	UK	46.7
23=	-	La Trobe University	Australia	45.7
23=	-	Monash University	Australia	45.7
25=	-	Auckland University	New Zealand	45.4
25=	33	Georgetown University	US	45.4
27=	45	Tor Vergata University, Rome	Italy	44.9
27=	20	Edinburgh University	UK	44.9
29=	-	University of Technology, Sydney	Australia	44.7
29=	36	Helsinki University	Finland	44.7
29=	16	Oslo University	Norway	44.7
29=	18	School of Oriental and African Studies	UK	44.7
33	28	University of Chicago	US	44.1
34=	47	University of British Columbia	Canada	43.9
34=	13	University of Michigan	US	43.9
36=	-	Macquarie University	Australia	42.6
36=	-	Sydney University	Australia	42.6
36=	-	Hebrew University of Jerusalem	Israel	42.6
39=	-	Calcutta University	India	42.3
39=	22	Sussex University	UK	42.3
41=	24	Heidelberg University	Germany	41.5
41=	19	Pennsylvania University	US	41.5
41=	27	University of California, Los Angeles	US	41.5
44	-	Brown University	US	40.9
45=	-	University of Western Australia	Australia	40.1
45=	31	Chinese University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong	40.1
45=	-	Malaya University	Malaysia	40.1
48=	-	Pontifical Catholic University of Chile	Chile	39.2
48=	-	Massachusetts University	US	39.2
50	-	Johns Hopkins University	US	38.3
51	-	Seoul National University	South Korea	37.7
52=	-	University of New South Wales	Australia	37.4
52=	29	Hong Kong University	Hong Kong	37.4
54=	-	University of Florence	Italy	36.7
54=	46	Virginia University	US	36.7
56=	-	RMIT University	Australia	36.5
56=	34	Vienna University	Austria	36.5
56=	35	Tsing Hua University	China	36.5
56=	-	Frankfurt University	Germany	36.5
56=	-	Athens University	Greece	36.5
56=	-	Gadjah Mada University	Indonesia	36.5
56=	-	Bologna University	Italy	36.5
56=	-	Hiroshima University	Japan	36.5
56=	-	Hitotsubashi University	Japan	36.5
56=	37	Amsterdam University	Netherlands	36.5
56=	-	Lomonosov Moscow State University	Russia	36.5
56=	17	National University of Singapore	Singapore	36.5
56=	38	Autonomous University of Madrid	Spain	36.5
56=	41	St Andrews University	UK	36.5
56=	42	Utah University	US	36.5
56=	43	New York University	US	36.5
56=	44	Michigan State University	US	36.5
73	-	Duke University	US	34.3
74=	-	Tecnológico de Monterrey	Mexico	33.8
74=	-	Erasmus University Rotterdam	Netherlands	33.8
74=	-	Pontifical Catholic University of Peru	Peru	33.8
74=	-	Novosibirsk State University	Russia	33.8
78	-	Boston University	US	32.8
79=	-	Concordia University	Canada	32.5
79=	-	Hamburg University	Germany	32.5
79=	-	Delft University of Technology	Netherlands	32.5
79=	-	Manchester University and Umist	UK	32.5
79=	26	University of Wisconsin - Madison	US	32.5
79=	-	University of Illinois	US	32.5
79=	-	University of New Mexico	US	32.5
79=	-	Purdue University	US	32.5
87	-	Delhi University	India	31.8
88	-	Tulane University	US	31.4
89=	-	Queensland University	Australia	30.7
89=	-	Hong Kong University Sci and Technol	Hong Kong	30.7
89=	-	Waseda University	Japan	30.7
89=	21	Nanyang Technological University	Singapore	30.7
89=	-	Korea University	South Korea	30.7
89=	-	Colombo University	Sri Lanka	30.7
95=	-	Pontifical Catholic University-Rio	Brazil	29.5
95=	-	University of Toronto	Canada	29.5
95=	-	Bristol University	UK	29.5
95=	-	York University	UK	29.5
95=	-	Rochester University	US	29.5
100	-	Freiburg University	Germany	29.2

Source: The Times Higher Education Supplement, and QS Quacquarelli Symonds Ltd, published October 21 2005

NB: In 2004, there was only enough data to produce a Top 50, hence the rankings in column 2.

______________________

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http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aitheatre/

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-------------------------------------------------------

'I'm a scholar not a terrorist' - the US Administration's latest assault on academic freedom

2005-03-25T00:48:00.000-08:00

Check out this link: http://www.thes.co.uk/current_edition/story.aspx?story_id=2020591

'I'm a scholar not a terrorist'

Toby Muse
The Times Higher Education Supplement: 25 March 2005

The experience of a history professor refused entry to the US under new anti-terror laws is a blow to all those who support the free exchange of ideas, says Toby Muse

Early in 2004, Dora Maria Tellez, a heroine of Nicaragua's Sandinista revolution and now a professor of history, applied for a visa to study in the US in preparation to teach at one of that country's most prestigious academic institutions, Harvard University's Divinity School.

In January she was told by the US consul in Nicaragua that, under new provisions of the US immigration rules, her request for a visa had been denied. Only later did she discover that the provisions concerned people connected with terrorism.

"I have no idea why I've been labelled a terrorist and I really want an explanation," says 49-year-old Tellez by telephone from her home in Managua, Nicaragua.

A spokeswoman for the US State Department says that the agency can not comment on individual cases because they are confidential.

Tellez had planned to study at the University of San Diego to improve her English and prepare the subject matter she was to have taught from autumn, when she was due to take up her post as the Robert F. Kennedy visiting professor of Latin American studies.The appointment, a joint one with the David Rockefeller Center of Latin American Studies at Harvard University, involved teaching courses on religion and society.

Her two themes were to be the impact of the Sandinista revolution and a social history of Nicaragua's Caribbean coast.

Tellez has recently met with Nicaragua's foreign minister, and he agreed to write a letter asking for an explanation for the visa decision.

"The US Government says that this is a war on terrorism to the death, so I feel personally threatened when they qualify me as a terrorist," says Tellez, who teaches Central American history at the Managua-based Central American University.

The US has made its immigration system its first line of defence against foreign terrorist attacks. Tellez's case highlights the fact that there has been greater scrutiny of visas of all types since the events of 9/11.

Tellez has visited the US as a tourist in the past, but has not been back to the country since 2000.

She believes there is no hope that the US will change its mind over her visa application in the current climate.

A spokeswoman for Harvard's Divinity School says that it is likely there will be no guest lecturer for the autumn term, given the limited time the university has to find another professor.

The dean, William A. Graham, says the school is "disappointed" by the rejection of the visa. "We strongly support the free exchange of scholars and scholarship internationally." He adds that the school will help Tellez to gain a visa if she wants to teach at the university in future.

Her case is causing concern in some quarters over possible restrictions on academic freedom in the US and has reignited the old debate about who is deemed a terrorist and who a freedom fighter.

"This Administration is using the term terrorist for political opponents," says Tellez, who turned to history "because it seemed the only way to explain the condition of my country and what was occurring in the world".

She adds: "The relationship between the US and Nicaragua has always been one in which the US has had complete domination. To my mind, when the Sandinistas ruled, this was an exception to that history.

"It is ironic that the US is calling me a terrorist when the US Government supported the Contras against the Sandinista Government. There is a double morality at work here - the US says it wants to destroy all terrorism, but this same Government has supported terrorist groups. My case has nothing to do with national security."

Tellez was a leading figure in the Nicaraguan revolution that overthrew the dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979.

A self-described "combatant, political leader and guerrilla leader", as a 22-year-old she was one of 25 revolutionaries who dressed as waiters and took over the country's national assembly, drawing global attention to the struggle that was going on in the country.

She then led guerrillas to rise up in the city of Le"n, which is often referred to as the first real uprising of the revolution.

During the Eighties, she served as Minister for Health in the Sandinista Government and remains committed to her ideals. In the Nineties, Tellez helped found the Sandinista Renewal Movement political party and was subsequently elected president of the party.

Following the attacks of September 2001, observers have seen a number of cases similar to that of Tellez.

Last year, the US Government took the unprecedented step of denying visas to an entire delegation of Cuban scholars who had been invited to participate in the Latin American Studies Association congress in Las Vegas.

"The fact is that Cuban academics are government employees. They come as government officials, and we have a policy restricting travel by Cuban government officials. We think it's not consistent with our national interest," says Richard Boucher, a spokesman for the State Department, explaining the rejection of the 67 visas.

He adds: "As far as I'm aware, none of these individuals has distinguished him or herself for free thinking and for questioning anything the (Cuban) regime has said."

Last year, a Swiss national, Tariq Ramadan, was offered a post at the prestigious Notre Dame University to teach as the Henry R. Luce professor of religion, conflict and peace building. He had been named one of the 100 most important thinkers and scientists by Time magazine.

He is also the grandson of Hasan al-Banna, who helped to found the Muslim Brotherhood - one of the most influential radical Islamist groups - in Egypt in 1928.

With the work visa in place and just days before he and his family were set to leave for the US, the Department of Homeland Security revoked his visa in accord with a law denying entry to aliens who use a "position of prominence within any country to endorse or espouse terrorist activity".

A spokesman adds that the decision was based on "public safety or national security interests".

"If the reason for keeping Tellez out does turn out to be for her political beliefs or past actions then, like the Ramadan case, this raises very serious questions about the Administration's decision to keep out individuals because of their expressed political ideas," says Jonathan Knight, who directs the programme for academic freedom and tenure with the American Association of University Professors.

He adds that the guidelines on denying people entry to the US on the basis that they "endorse or espouse" terrorist activity are so broad that they could encompass practically anything.

"From our perspective, we're not so concerned about the rights of the individual, but rather the rights of the public to have access to other ideas, other experiences and engage in debate with these different voices."

With the increased scrutiny of both foreign students and professors, says Knight, the AAUP is hearing of more and more people who are deciding to study or teach elsewhere.

______________________

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The Radical Generation of the Sixties speaking on Today's World

2005-03-18T04:28:00.000-08:00

Check out this link:

http://www.thes.co.uk/current_edition/story.aspx

They turned on, tuned in but did not drop out

Mike O'Donnell
The Times Higher Education Supplement: 18 March 2005

Student radicals of the Sixties wanted to change the world. Mike O'Donnell speaks to some of them 40 years on.

Many of the post-1945 baby-boom generation will be hitting 60 this year. As part of my research on the Sixties, I am interviewing a sample of the generation that thought 30 was old and life after 40 unimaginable. All were students in the Sixties or early Seventies and were either involved in or sympathetic to the radical activities of that period.

Everyone I interviewed felt that "something special" happened in the Sixties: "You got a sense of things changing... you know... in terms of clothes and personal mores, the way things were being questioned."

Most participants came from middle-class homes, and several commented on the conservatism of their parents and on how higher education provided them the opportunity to escape it. David Milner, now a professor of psychology at Westminster University, says that in the mid-Sixties, when the fashion was for long hair and hippy clothes, his father accused him of appearing "effeminate": a fairly standard adult comment about the style of the time.

Two respondents from working-class backgrounds managed to enter higher education. Both felt restricted by the cultural conservatism of their parents but were influenced politically by the socialism of their respective fathers. Both sought new ways of expressing their socialism, preferring to express themselves within the emerging student movement to becoming activists in the "old Left" Labour Party. Each took time to adjust to university life. One was thrown out of university for taking part in a sit-in. The other worked as a university secretary and registered for a BA only when she was repeatedly told by several people that she was "as bright as the students".

Most interviewees related their personal conflicts and their "evolution"to the wider context of economic expansion and greater affluence that underpinned a generational cultural explosion. As one participant put it:

"In the Sixties and Seventies there was a collective sense of a whole generation being bound together."

The identity of higher education students became defined by a sense of belonging to a generation or an aspect of it rather than to their family.

This did not necessarily involve any formal decision to join in - the long hair, the hippy clothes, the music, the drugs, the counterculture were pervasive. Nevertheless, there were informal pressures to conform to nonconformity: not to be "turned on" was to be "square". Not everyone was "an original", but the feeling of originality was endemic.

Few interviewees were "joiners" of political groups, either. Most did not engage in traditional class politics despite their concern about inequality. The various campus Marxist groups were seen as too doctrinaire.

In practice, libertarianism triumphed over egalitarianism.

Marches, protests, ad hoc coalitions and sit-ins happened on such a regular basis that they seemed a normal part of life and students felt they were about to change the world. The timescale demanded for change tended to be immediate: "freedom now" was the iconic slogan. The need for a detailed long-term strategy tended to be overlooked.

If the Sixties student Left was thin on ideology, it was fertile in issues: nuclear disarmament; university bureaucracy; corporate corruption; the Vietnam War. In the Seventies, racism, women's rights, gay rights, the environment and global inequality came to the fore. The social movements associated with these are part of the long-term legacy of student radicalism.

The interviewees had different ways of coping with the move from radical student life to working life. Sue Sharpe, research associate at the Institute of Education, and Janet Holland, professor of social research at London South Bank University, were students at the London School of Economics in the Sixties. They found the feminist movement provided something close to a combination of a career and a way of life for them. It also helped them to distance themselves from what they saw as the chauvinism of Sixties radicalism. Holland adds that she has found it easier to make progress with her feminism than with her socialism.

Others also chose careers that were compatible with their principles. Roger Smith, a former student activist at Essex University, is now director of ADEPT, a community development agency. Quite simply, he says, he could not imagine working for the private sector so he put his entrepreneurial talents to public use. Several interviewees said they followed careers in higher education or other areas of the public sector as a way of squaring their values with the need to make a living. Some have paid a price in marginalised status and lower income as a result.

Several interviewees looked nostalgic when I mentioned participatory democracy: "That got lost somewhere" was one response. All were disillusioned with Tony Blair and saw much continuity between new Labour and Thatcherism. By the time Margaret Thatcher came to power, all the interviewees realised that the Sixties dream of a radically different society was over.

Chris Rojek, professor of sociology and culture at Nottingham Trent University, is, at 50, the youngest interviewee. He regards the emphasis on the cultural changes engendered by the Sixties as a conspicuous example of a long-term trend towards the individualisation and informalisation of society brought about by greater affluence and leisure. However, if liberal capitalism has increased many people's wealth, he and others regard it as manipulative of consumers and exploitative of the poor.

Opinions about contemporary youth are mixed but sympathetic. Students are perceived as more conformist, partly because of the way they are more controlled by government policy. They are typically in debt, frequently need to do paid work as well as study and often live with their parents.

The anti-globalisation movement, which many of today's students are part of, is positively seen as comparable to Sixties radicalism in its values and decentralised organisational style. But whether it is reformist or revolutionary was not raised as an issue.

Mike O'Donnell is a professor of sociology at Westminster University. He is giving a paper, Now We Are (Nearly) 60: Reflections of a Radical Generation, at the annual conference of the British Sociological Association, at York University (March 21-23).

______________________

Hazem Azmy

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http://hazemazmy.8m.net/cyberbabel.html

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'I like the idea of challenging stereotypes' - Times Higher Education Supplement

2005-02-03T12:41:00.000-08:00

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http://www.thes.co.uk/current_edition/story.aspx?story_id=2019143

The Times Higher Education Supplement

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