Advanced search Subscribe to our newsletter and you'll continuously be informed about our new books, series and journals. You can customize this e-mail newsletter to your particular needs and interests. Newsletters include special discount codes. To subscribe or change existing preferences press the subscribe button	Series and Journals Knowledge as Value. Illumination through Critical Prisms. MORLEY, Ian and Mira CROUCH (Eds.) Amsterdam/New York, NY, 2008, XIII, 226 pp. Hb: 978-90-420-2438-0 € 48 / US$ 65 Series: At the Interface/Probing the Boundaries 50 This book considers the place and value of knowledge in contemporary society. “Knowledge” is not a self-evident concept: both its denotations and connotations are historically situated. Since the Enlightenment, knowledge has been a matter of discovery through effort, and “knowledge for its own sake” a taken-for-granted ideal underwriting progressive education as a process which not only taught “for” and “about” something, but also ennobled the soul. While this ideal has not been explicitly rejected, in recent decades there has been a tacit move away from a strong emphasis on its centrality, even in Higher Education. The authors address the values that inform knowledge production in its present forms, and seek to identify social and cultural factors that support these values. Against the background of increasingly restrictive conditions of academic work, the first section of this volume offers incisive critiques of Higher Education, with examples drawn from Australia and New Zealand. The second group of chapters considers how academics have viewed, and have tried to adapt to, present circumstances. The third section comprises papers that consider epistemological issues in the generation and promulgation of knowledge. The chapters in this volume are indicative of the work that needs to be done so that we can come to comprehend – and perhaps try and improve – our relationship to learning and knowledge in the 21st Century. This timely book will be of particular interest to workers in higher education; it should also inform and challenge all those who have concerns for the future of the intellectual life of our civilization. Contents Introduction PART I Critical Questions John MCDONALD: Valuing Intellectual Freedom: A Critical Analysis of Policies in Australian Universities Grant DUNCAN: Counting the Currency of Knowledge: New Zealand’s Performance-Based Research Fund Francine ROCHFORD: Conceptions of Knowledge and the Modern University Stephen HEALY: Knowledge as Practice: Implications for the Tertiary Sector PART II Substantive Matters Tai PESETA & Catherine MANATHUNGA: The Anxiety of Making Academics Over: Resistance and Responsibility in the Academic Development Project Ian MORLEY: The Internet, the Knowledge Product, & the Craft of History Graham CHIA-HUI PRESTON: “Most Intellectuals Will Only Half Listen”: The Needs and Futures of Hip-Hop Studies S. RAM VEMURI: Knowledge Value through Management PART III Epistemological Issues Mireta VON GERLACH: Making the Structures Tumble Mark ROLFE: The Classics & Australian Culture Wars Matthew STEEN: The Mutation of Economics Craig COLLINS: Pericles was a Plumber: Towards Resolving the Liberal and Vocational Dichotomy in Legal Education Heather MCKENZIE, Maureen BOUGHTON, Lillian HAYES, & Sue FORSYTH: Explaining the Complexities and Value of Nursing Practice and Knowledge Notes on Contributors	Tijnmuiden 7 1046 AK Amsterdam The Netherlands T: +31-20-611 48 21 F: +31-20-447 29 79 248 East 44th Street - 2nd floor New York, NY 10017 USA T: 1-800-225-3998 F: 1-800-853-3881 Toll-free in the USA info@rodopi.nl