A day in the life (and death) of a public university

Abstract

This is a narrative of an actual day in the author's working life at a large public university in the southern hemisphere. It is an enquiry into life, and death, at the university. It attempts to balance a critical and informed perspective with a lived perspective and, as a story that contributes to a developing genre of academic writing, it works to counter the dominant neo-liberal discourse in the university by reaffirming the value of the imagination. It reflects on a remarkable–unremarkable day to show the complexity of being an individual subject, situated in language, hailed by different discourses, feeling and sometimes thinking contradictory things at once, in a contemporary university context.

Keywords:

• academic work
• discourse
• narrative
• space
• subjectivity
• university

Notes

1. There is also the issue of dialogue; one of the ways in which the ‘I’ here is not fully contained within itself is demonstrated through engagement with others. As one reader of this story pointed out, the narrator is frequently in dialogue or ‘intimately involved’ with colleagues’ thoughts and reflections; ‘Your thoughts and reflections arise not just from your own direct experience but from your exchange with many minds’ (personal correspondence).

2. This phrase echoes New Zealand writer Robin Hyde's A home in this world (1984) and the Otago University advertisement campaign jingo (2012) ‘your place/in the/world’.