The University of Life

In this paper, I read across from universities to Latour and back again. The paper is in four parts. In the first part, I attend to the new strands of activity that have accreted to universities over the last twenty years or so and, at the same time, to the growth in variation in what is called “university.” The second part of the paper alights on the different and seemingly opposed values that can be found in the current much expanded spectrum of universities as a result and the clashes that these different strands of activity engender. The third part of the paper suggests how universities could be redesigned in the face of this greater diversity, not just as a means of compromise but as a new synthesis based around experimentation and adventure. Universities badly need redesigning because of the process of accretion of new strands of activity. That can either be done as a result of these new strands of activity being given free rein or through conscious intervention so as to produce a more considered and dutiful outcome, an intervention that includes means of bridge-making between each strand as a matter of course. Finally, there is a brief conclusion which raises the prospect of reinstating a certain kind of honor in the lives of universities.