The Production of Living Knowledge: The Crisis of the University and the Transformation of Labor in Europe and North America

by Gigi Roggero

Evaluating higher education institutionsOCoparticularly the rise of the OC global universityOCOOCoand their rapidly changing role in the global era, Gigi Roggero finds the system in crisis. In his groundbreaking book, a"The Production of Living Knowledge," Roggero examines the university system as a key site of conflict and transformation within OC cognitive capitalismOCOOCoa regime in which knowledge has become increasingly central to the production process at large. Based on extensive fieldwork carried out through the activist method ofa"conricerca," or OC co-research, OCO wherein researchers are also subjects, RoggeroOCOs book situates the crisis of the university and the changing composition of its labor force against the backdrop of the global economic crisis.

Combining a discussion of radical experiments in education, new student movements, and autonomist Marxian (or post-"operaista") social theory, Roggero produces a distinctly transnational and methodologically innovative critique of the global university from the perspective of what he calls OC living knowledge.OCO

In light of new student struggles in the United States and across the world, this first English-language edition is particularly timely.

Genres: Politics

214 pages, Hardcover

First published August 19, 2011

Reviews

[Mona Kareem · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good book if you haven't read previous Marxist readings of the 'university.' He takes a big project to himself and doesn't fulfill it but you can know about the student movements and education laws in Italy and the US (only NYU, Columbia, and Yale). If you are not too interested, just skip the first two chapters, the fourth and fifth are the core of his argument. His critique of the administration and faculty is crucial. The notion of 'disidentification' taken from Ranciere, in chapter 5, is also important.