CFP: Tensions at Work for Tenured & Tenure Stream Faculty in the Neoliberal Academy (Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor)

by E Wayne Ross on October 26, 2011

Call for Papers:
In/stability, In/security & In/visibility:
Tensions at Work for Tenured & Tenure Stream Faculty in the Neoliberal Academy

Special Issue of Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor 2011
Guest Editors: Kaela Jubas & Colleen Kawalilak

 

For this special issue of Workplace, we invite submissions from individuals working in tenured or tenure stream positions.  The question at the core is how neoliberalism is apparent, experienced, and felt in the context of that work.  For senior faculty, how has the scope and practice of work evolved, to what effect, and to what detriment?  For junior faculty, how are aspirations and expectations for academic work being (un)met?  For faculty at the intermediate stage of their academic careers, how is work being seen and practiced differently?  For all faculty members, how are changes at work relating to life and identity more broadly?  Empirical research, analysis of policy, programmatic and curricular changes, personal reflections, and critical and exploratory essays on points of tensions within this shifting landscape will be featured.

The social, cultural, and individual repercussions of neoliberal policies and practices have been well explored and documented.  In this journal alone, recent volumes have focused on the shift from tenure stream faculty to contingent and part-time faculty, the creep of commercial and philanthropic bodies into so-called public education, and the turn away from individual and social development toward commercial viability to legitimate teaching and scholarship.  Less frequently explored is how neoliberalism is affecting members of the academy who, until recently, have had the benefits of stability, security, and voice – faculty members in tenured or tenure stream positions.  Although these academics continue to enjoy relative privilege in the neoliberal academy and in society-at-large, they too share in experiencing the drawbacks of neoliberalism in their work and personal lives.  Expectations that staff will “do more with less,” forego salary increases that keep pace with inflation, secure outside funding for research, and adopt a hyper-competitive mindset, all while exposing themselves to new forms of surveillance to check compliance, are as present in the academy as they are in any other workplace.

Abstracts can be forwarded by e-mail in Word or similar format to Kaela Jubas (kjubas@ucalgary.ca), and are due by January 15, 2012.  Authors will be notified about their submissions by February 15, 2012.  Full articles should be 4000-6000 words in length and conform to APA 6th edition, and will be due by May 15, 2012.