Author: Daniel Nehring

My career so far has taken me to a fairly wide range of places, and this has allowed me to experience a wide range of approaches to sociology and social science. In my blog, I reflect on this diversity and its implications for the future of the discipline. Over the last few years, I have also become interested in exploring the contours of academic life under neoliberal hegemony. Far-reaching transformations are taking place at universities around the world, in terms of organisational structures, patterns of authority, and forms of intellectual activity. With my posts, I hope to draw attention to some of these transformations.

Sociology for Sale
Higher Education Reform
June 18, 2019

Sociology for Sale

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Fast Professor: WeChat and Future Academe
Higher Education Reform
May 6, 2019

Fast Professor: WeChat and Future Academe

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Metricization, the SSCI Syndrome and Devaluing Books in Academic Sociology
Communication
November 18, 2018

Metricization, the SSCI Syndrome and Devaluing Books in Academic Sociology

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How Will Universities Cope With Brexit Britain’s Resurgent Nationalism?
Brexit
September 6, 2018

How Will Universities Cope With Brexit Britain’s Resurgent Nationalism?

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Arbitrary Choices and the Politics of Sociological Enquiry

Arbitrary Choices and the Politics of Sociological Enquiry

Arbitrary choices –all those political considerations that twist and constrain scholarship without adding to it in intellectually meaningful ways — are rife in contemporary academic sociology, says our Daniel Nehring. Tired of trying to pointlessly argue against them in hopes they disappear, he asks that we make these choices explicit and visible.

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David Webster and Nicola Rivers: ‘We Need to Recognize that Educators Can’t Solve Neoliberalism’

David Webster and Nicola Rivers: ‘We Need to Recognize that Educators Can’t Solve Neoliberalism’

Two speakers at the upcoming  “Between the discourse of ‘resilience’ and death by committee – Reclaiming collective spaces for academic resistance” forum say they became interested in the state of the neoliberal university because of attempts to bandage wounds that the current system had inflicted.

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Mariya Ivancheva: ‘At Stake is the Future of Public Higher Education’

Mariya Ivancheva: ‘At Stake is the Future of Public Higher Education’

Anthropologist and sociologist Mariya Ivancheva has viewed modern higher education from a number of global perches, whether in Eastern Europe or South Africa, the strapped Bolivarian University of Venezuela, and in Ireland and the UK. Her vantages have left her no fan of the neoliberal reforms — or perhaps, ‘reforms’ — that characterize western-influences higher education.

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Ewan Mackenzie: ‘A Sense of Hope for Achieving Broader Change’

Ewan Mackenzie: ‘A Sense of Hope for Achieving Broader Change’

In this second of a series of interviews conducted by Social Science Space’s Daniel Nehring, Ewan Mackenzie explains why he joined the May 4 ‘Reclaiming’ event at Newcastle, discusses hallmarks of the modern academic institutions and details some of the events that lead him to believe in both resilience and resistance.

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Audrey Verma: ‘A Clean-up Crew for the Messes and Excesses of Neoliberalism’

Audrey Verma: ‘A Clean-up Crew for the Messes and Excesses of Neoliberalism’

In this debut interview conducted by Social Science Space’s Daniel Nehring, Audrey Verma explains her inspirations in organizing the forum, how her claims of the feminization and racialization of higher ed are borne out in academe, and why critiques of neoliberal impulses in universities have had so little traction in the past four decades.

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Announcing a New Series on Academic Capitalism

Announcing a New Series on Academic Capitalism

In the coming weeks, Social Science Space will publish a series of interviews on academic capitalism and academic resistance. These interviews pertain to the event “Between the discourse of ‘resilience’ and death by committee – Reclaiming collective spaces for academic resistance,” organised by the Early Career Forum of the British Sociological Association and hosted by Newcastle University.

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Why Has Brexit Britain Not Had an Immigration Debate?

Why Has Brexit Britain Not Had an Immigration Debate?

The post-referendum public debates in the United Kingdom have been about the future of Britain and British citizens, and questions about the lives and futures of EU citizens in Britain have faded into the background, argues our Daniel Nehring. This absence of an open-ended public conversation about immigration speaks to the ways in which power organizes truth.

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Academics: The Belaboured Profession

Academics: The Belaboured Profession

With the exception of star academics and leading figures of the United Kingdom’s academic establishment, lecturers today are held in little regard, argues our Daniel Nehring. The specialized aspects of the academic experience are little recognized and even less honored.

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