[URBANTH-L] CFP: Anthropology News Theme Issue on the Political Economy of Academia

[Angela Jancius]

Dear colleagues,

Last spring, Urbanth-L subscribers had a very interesting discussion on the
changing political economy of academia.  The managing editor of Anthropology
News has asked me to help organize a theme issue of AN on this topic.
I'd like to encourage everyone, and particularly those who contributed to
our previous discussion, to consider submitting a piece.  See the call for
papers below.

Please note that the deadline is a short one - your 1,000 word submissions
should be submitted by November 15.

with regards,
Angela Jancius

Moderator, Urbanth-L
http://lists.ysu.edu/mailman/admin.cgi/urbanth-l

The Listserv of the Society for Urban, National
and Transnational/Global Anthropology (SUNTA)
http://www.sunta.org/


Call for Papers:  The Political Economy of Academia

Anthropology News is soliciting contributions for a special theme issue on
the Political Economy of Academia.
      Where are current economic and cultural trends in higher learning
taking us?  With a changing economy, the number of students attending
post-secondary institutions has doubled in the US since the 1970s.
Despite the stagnation of real wages, however, tuition rates at
post-secondary institutions have steadily climbed, and US students are
taking on ever-greater debt burdens to earn their degrees.  In contrast,
postsecondary education in many countries is more affordable, or even free.
      And with the increasing emphasis upon institional ranking, which has
accompanied enrollment growths, degrees from "non-elite" institutions are
being marketed, today, more as a ticket toward higher earnings, than as a
pathway toward intellectual development.  Emphasizing the marketability
of degrees is a strategy that runs parallel to a steady decline in
government funding, and an increase in administrative hires.  Younger
scholars feel the blunt force of these shifts, as visiting PhDs and 
underpaid
adjuncts replace the tenured faculty who once did most of the teaching.
     How successfully have we been responding to what is often referred
to as the "corporatization" of higher education?  And why have
anthropologists - belonging to a field known for its introspection - not
paid more attention to the dramatic political-economic transformations
taking place in the universities in which we work?  How will these trends
affect future scholarship, fieldwork, teaching and advocacy?  Please send
your 1,000 word submissions, by November 15, 2007, to Stacy Lathrop
at slathrop at aaanet.org.