Higher Education in Liquid Modernity

Based in sociologist Zygmunt Bauman's theory of liquid modernity, this volume describes and critiques key aspects and practices of liquid education--education as market-driven consumption, short life span of useful knowledge, overabundance of information--through a systematic comparison with ancient Greek paideia and medieval university education, producing a sweeping analysis of the history and philosophy ofeducation for the purpose of understanding current higher education, positing a more holisitic alternative model in which students are embedded in a learning commutity that is itself embedded in a larger society. If liquid modernity has left a vacuum where, according to Bauman, the pilot's cabin is empty, this volume argues that no structure is better positioned to fill this vacuum than the university and outlines a renewed vision of social transformation through higher education.

Marvin Oxenham is in the Education department at Kings College London, UK.

Part I: Exordium 1. Higher Education and Change Part II: Narratio: The Definition of Liquid Education 2. Liquid Modernity 3. Liquid Education Part III: Confirmatio: The Reality of Liquid Education 4. Liquefied Authority 5. Liquefied Culture 6. Liquefied Reason 7. Liquefied Structure Part IV: Reprehensio: The Inferno of Liquid Education 8. Introducing the Inferno 9. Emaciated Education 10. Education in the Empty Agora 11. Consuming Education 12. Educational Anxiety 13. Responding to Liquid Education