If there is one sector of society that should be cultivating deep thought in itself and others, it is academia. Yet the corporatisation of the contemporary university has sped up the clock, demanding increased speed and efficiency from faculty regardless of the consequences for education and scholarship.
In The Slow Professor, Maggie Berg and Barbara K. Seeber discuss how adopting the principles of the Slow movement in academic life can counter this erosion of humanistic education. Focusing on the individual faculty member and his or her own professional practice, Berg and Seeber present both an analysis of the culture of speed in the academy and ways of alleviating stress while improving teaching, research, and collegiality. The Slow Professor will be a must-read for anyone in academia concerned about the frantic pace of contemporary university life.
If there is one sector of society that should be cultivating deep thought in itself and others, it is academia. Yet the corporatisation of the contemporary university has sped up the clock, demanding increased speed and efficiency from faculty regardless of the consequences for education and scholarship.
In The Slow Professor, Maggie Berg and Barbara K. Seeber discuss how adopting the principles of the Slow movement in academic life can counter this erosion of humanistic education. Focusing on the individual faculty member and his or her own professional practice, Berg and Seeber present both an analysis of the culture of speed in the academy and ways of alleviating stress while improving teaching, research, and collegiality. The Slow Professor will be a must-read for anyone in academia concerned about the frantic pace of contemporary university life.
Preface
Introduction
1. Time Management and Timelessness
2. Pedagogy and Pleasure
3. Research and Understanding
4. Collegiality and Community
Conclusion: Collaboration and Working Together
"Maggie Berg and Barbara K. Seeber's The Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy (University of Toronto Press) is a much-discussed manifesto that has launched a vitally needed conversation on the importance - and pleasures - of protecting open enquiry from the frantic pace of the modern academic assembly line." -- Susan Prentice, Professor of Sociology, University of Manitoba Times Higher Education, Books of the Year 2016 "The Slow Professor has a manifesto-like quality. But there are more scholarly insights packed into its slim 90-odd pages than you get in longer academic tomes. A must-read, but do take your time." -- Mike Marinetto, Lecturer in Business Ethics, Cardiff University Times Higher Education, Books of the Year 2016 "I love this book. Mentors should give it to newly hired faculty members. Advisors should buy it for their graduating PhDs. Individual faculty should read it to reclaim some of their sanity." -- Nancy Chick, University Chair in Teaching and Learning and Academic Director of the Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning, University of Calgary "I read this book with the intensity and engagement that I read a novel. It's a fresh and insightful study that reaches out to readers with wisdom as well as information." -- Teresa Mangum, Director of the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, University of Iowa
Maggie Berg is a professor in the Department of English at Queen’s
University. A winner of the Chancellor A. Charles Baillie Award for
Teaching Excellence, she held the Queen’s Chair of Teaching and
Learning from 2009 to 2012.
Barbara K. Seeber is a professor in the Department of English at
Brock University. She received the Brock Faculty of Humanities
Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2014.
‘A welcome part of a crucial conversation.’
*Times Literary Supplement, July 29, 2016*
"'Thrilling' isn't a word I often apply to books about higher
education, but these pages galvanized me."
*National Public Radio (NPR), May 13, 2016*
"What Maggie Berg and Barbara Seeber are doing in The Slow
Professor is protesting against the "corporatization of the
contemporary university", and reminding us of a kind of "good"
selfishness; theirs is a self-help book that recognises the fact
that an institution can only ever be as healthy as the sum of its
parts."
*Times Higher Education, May 26, 2016*
"The fact that precarious labour is becoming the norm in the
academy impacts everyone, including those with tenure."
*Rabble.ca, May 26, 2016*
"While The Slow Professor has already raised some eyebrows as an
example of "tenured privilege," it’s at once an important addition
and possible antidote to the growing literature on the
corporatization of the university."
*Inside Higher Education, April 19, 2016*
“It’s a beguiling book, written in controlled anger at the
corporatized university, overrun by administrators and
marketers.”
*The Toronto Star, September 9, 2016*
“The Slow Professor recognizes the psychological strains of
academic work, but subtly points toward explicitly political
responses to the emotional toxins we absorb; but, it also avoids
the fate of most subject-centred therapeutic exercises which are
mainly courses in adaptation and resignation. Although it is no
call to arms, no manifesto, nor a shout of defiance at the
authorities, for insightful readers, the next step beyond
self-awareness will be obvious.”
*CAUT Bulletin, September, 2016*
‘Thoughtful, reflective… The best thing this book accomplishes is
its unabashed encouragement to talk to our colleagues in order to
increase solidarity and togetherness in the combat against changing
and challenging professional environments.’
*Journal of Higher Education – September 2016*
"In 90 thrilling pages of text, Berg and Seeber describe the
current corporatization of the college campus and urge professors
to resist it with all they’ve got. ‘Thrilling’ isn't a word I often
apply to books about higher education, but these pages galvanized
me … I hope that college teachers will take time to savor The Slow
Professor and talk about it with each other at faculty reading
groups."
*National Public Radio*
‘The book is well researched, nicely written and speaks to an issue
of central importance to those of us pursuing the academic
life.’
*Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare vol 44:2017*
"It was after a quarter century of being a professor that I was
fortunate enough to stumble upon The Slow Professor: Challenging
the Culture of Speed in the Academy by Maggie Berg and Barbara K.
Seeber, a book that that expresses much of what I have found
wanting in academic life. [It] is an enlightening commentary on the
contemporary life of the university professor… [standing] as a
dedicated attempt to revive a much-needed vision of the
professoriate and the university."
*Högre utbildning*
"The Slow Professor is a notable attempt at recovering humane
culture and attentiveness in academic life. Berg and Seeber have
begun an important conversation about the philosophical basis of
scholarly work; their alternative to the corporate model is a
welcome intervention."
*University of Toronto Quarterly, vol 87 3, Summer 2018*
"Ultimately, Berg and Seeber’s book offers a vision of academia is
a nurturing, relationally connected company of people seeking a
deeper understanding of the world in which they live, a vision that
will surely appeal to most."
*Sociology, vol 53:1*
"A real value of the book is its insistence that changes in
university cultures are not about outlying individuals changing
their practices alone but rather about the relationships between
individuals and their struggles together to create different
cultures through small acts."
*Sociology, vol 53:1*
"Like slow TV, slow food and slow travel, Berg and Seeber argue
that we can practice slow scholarship, by resurrecting the values
of deep, reflective thinking, mindful self-awareness and playful
creativity."
*Sociology, vol 53:1*
"[The Slow Professor] is a manifesto for maximizing meaningful
productivity, in place of today’s hurried production of short-lived
outputs."
*Sociology, vol 53:1*
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