Leavis and the Creative University

Abstract

This chapter considers where Leavis sits in relation to thinking about the ‘democratic mass university’. Is time spent attending to Leavis going to be unproductive, without any contemporary application? Is his kind of thinking about the university one that is no longer available to us? The key to answering these questions in a productive way lies in Leavis’s approach to what might be called ‘the creative university’. Here Leavis provides several insights and conceptual tools for clarifying thinking about the fundamental values and purposes of higher education, its key questions, and its potential for fostering collaborative creativity.