Producing Pleasure in the Contemporary University

Abstract

Academics working in contemporary universities are experiencing unprecedented and unsustainable pressure in an environment of hyper-performativity, metrics and accountability. From this perspective, the university produces multiple tensions and moments of crises, where it seems that there is limited space left for the intrinsic enjoyment arising from scholarly practices. This book offers a global perspective on how pleasure is central to the endeavours of academics working in the contemporary university, with contributors evaluating the opportunities for the strategic refusal of the quantifying, stultifying and stupefying delimiters of what is possible for academic production. The aim of this book is to open up spaces for conversation, reflection and thought, in order to think, to be and to do differently - pleasurably. Contributors rupture the bounds of what is permissible and possible within their daily lives, habits and practices. As such, this book addresses increasingly significant questions. What are some of the multiple and different ways that we can reclaim pleasure and enhance the durations and intensities of our passions, desires and becomings within the contemporary university? How might these aspirations be realised? What are the spaces for the pleasurable production of research that might be opened up? How might we reconfigure the neoliberal university to be a place of more affect, where desire, laughter and joy join with the work that we seek to undertake and the communities whom we serve? TABLE OF CONTENTS -- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS -- 1. PARTAKING OF PLEASURE: Regenerating the Working Lives of University Academics -- INTRODUCTION -- IN THE GROVES OF ACADEME? -- PARTAKING OF PLEASURE -- RECLAIMING PLEASURE IN THE CONTEMPORARY UNIVERSITY -- REFERENCES -- 2. PRODUCING MOMENTS OF PLEASURE WITHIN THE CONFINES OF THE NEOLIBERAL UNIVERSITY -- THEREâ#x80;#x99;S A FINE LINE BETWEEN PLEASURE AND PAIN -- MAPPING THE TERRITORY -- FOOLISH FAILURES -- MEDIATING EXPERIMENTATION -- Deconstruct Language -- Vitalist Writing -- Writingassemblage -- AND SO -- NOTES TOWARDS A MINOR â#x81;#x81;ACADEMIC LITERATURE(S) OR, HOW TO GO AT IT FULL TILTCONCLUSION -- NOTES -- REFERENCES -- 5. WILD CHOREOGRAPHY OF AFFECT AND ECSTACY: Contentious Pleasure (Joussiance) in the Academy -- INTRODUCTION -- JOUISSANCE OF FEMINIST KILLJOYS -- HAPPINESS IN THE HIGHER EDUCATION MILIEU -- COLLECTIVE BIOGRAPHY -- PRODUCING A BWO THROUGH A RHIZO-TEXTUAL CHOREOGRAPHY OF JOUISSANCE -- JOUISSANCE IN THE ACADEMY -- To Stutter and Laugh -- CONCLUSION -- NOTE -- REFERENCES -- 6. THE JOY IN WRITINGASSEMBLAGE -- INTRODUCTION -- MAKING SPACE FOR JOY WRITING FOR AND WITH PLEASUREJOYFUL WRITINGASSEMBLAGES -- PLEASURE â#x80;#x93; THE ABSTRACT LINE -- REFERENCES -- 7. FEMALE PLEASURE IN THE ACADEMY THROUGH EROTIC POWER -- INTRODUCTION: THE CHALLENGES FOR WOMEN -- ANDROCENTRIC THINKING, MASCULINIZED FRAMEWORKS, AND WOMEN -- False Consciousness for Women -- NEOLIBERALISM AND THE NEOLIBERAL SELF -- Reclamation of Erotic Power as Increasing Pleasure -- PLEASURE AND EROTIC POWER -- EROTIC POWER, INTELLECTUAL VIRTUES, AND PLEASURE -- Pleasure as a Liberating Force -- NOTES -- REFERENCES 8. THE INTRINSIC PLEASURE OF BEING PRESENT WITH/IN HUMANISTIC RESEARCHINTRODUCTION -- BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT â#x80;#x93; THE HUMAN CONDITION -- RESEARCH APPROACH AND PROCESS -- Selecting a Research Focus and Approach -- Physical Cognition and Emotion can act as a Litmus Test to Determine the â#x80;#x98;Fitâ#x80;#x99; of a Research Process for the Researcher -- Academic Scholarship Can Stimulate an Embodied Response and Research Momentum -- REFLECTIONS ON THE OVERALL RESEARCH PROCESS -- CONCLUDING STATEMENTS AND CLOSING THOUGHTS -- REFERENCES