The university is under threat. For forty years this indispensable democratic institution has been systematically betrayed by governments and the political class, who have redirected it from its proper social and cultural functions through a relentless programme of financialisation. Taking his cue from Julien Benda’s classic polemical essay of 1927, Thomas Docherty exposes the forces behind modern university ‘reform’. He demonstrates that the sector has been politicised and now works expli...

This reader provides a selection of articles and essays by leading figures in the postmodernism debate.

"Docherty is not only is a brilliant critic of those forces that would like to transform higher education into an extension of the market-place... he is also a man of great moral and civic courage, who under intense pressure from the punishing neoliberal state has risked a great deal to remind us that higher education is a civic institution crucial to creating the formative cultures necessary for a democracy to survive, if not flourish."- Henry Giroux, McMasters Universi...

Complicity argues that all existing modes of cultural critique are regarded as legitimate and productive if and only if they are complicit with the very ideologies and values that the criticism sets out to undermine. Through philosophical, literary and theoretical analysis, Thomas Docherty shows how easy it has been for criticism to become essentially an act of political collaboration with existing governmental power.The book explores the various ways in which, both historically an...

This picture book combines extracts from the works of Dylan Thomas that centre on his recollections of Cwmdonkin Park, Swansea. A boyhood adventure like no other, Dylan's words serve to bring to life the period, the environment and the very essence of what it is to be a child with a child's imagination.

Contemporary criticism of Donne has tended to ignore the historical culture and ideology that conditioned his writings, reinforcing the traditionally accepted model of the poet as a humanist of ethical, cultural and political individualism. In this title, first published in 1986, Thomas Docherty challenges this with a more rigorously theoretical reading of Donne, particularly in relation to the specific culture of the late Renaissance in Europe. Docherty locates Donne’s poetry at the crux ...

What is the value of literature?In this important new work, Thomas Docherty charts a new economic history of literary culture and its institutions in the modern age. From the literary patronage of the early modern period, through the colonial exploitation of the 18th and 19th centuries to the institutionalisation of “literature” in the neoliberal university of the 21st century, Literature and Capital explores the changing ways in which literary culture has both re...

From post-truth politics to “no-platforming” on university campuses, the English language has been both a potent weapon and a crucial battlefield for our divided politics. In this important and wide-ranging intervention, Thomas Docherty explores the politics of the English language, its implication in the dynamics of political power and the spaces it offers for dissent and resistance. From the authorised English of the King James Bible to the colonial project of University English Studies,...

Exploring the controversial history of an aesthetic – realism – this book examines the role that realism plays in the negotiation of social, political, and material realities from the mid-19th century to the present day.Examining a broad range of literary texts from French, English, Italian, German, and Russian writers, this book provides new insights into how realism engages with themes including capital, social decorum, the law and its politicisation, modern science as a determin...

Mood is a phenomenon whose study is inherently interdisciplinary. While it has remained resistant to theorisation, it nonetheless has a substantial influence on art, politics and society. Since its practical omnipresence in every-day life renders it one of the most significant aspects of affect studies, it has garnered an increasing amount of critical attention in a number of disciplines across the humanities, sciences and social sciences in the past two decades. Mood: Interdisciplinar...

Age Level: 4 to 8 | Grade Level: K to 4What's a knight's greatest power? Stories, of course! From the beloved author/illustrator team behind The Snatchabook comes the ultimate storytime book about castles, knights, dragons, and the power of stories!Even dragons love a good story...Leo was a gentle knightin thought and word and deed.While other knights liked fighting,Leo liked to...

Discover a heartwarming story that will help children understand and prepare for a loss.Gerda and Orlo are bear best friends. When Gerda was there, Orlo always had time. For a game or a story, a joke or a rhyme. He was never too busy to listen, to talk. To help, or to share, or to go for a walk.But slowly—at first—something starts to change and Orlo reveals he is sick and not going to get better. Gerda is filled with emotions that she cannot explain but Orl...