Not sure if it's useful, but I'd whole-heartedly recommend David Graeber's _Bullshit Jobs: A Theory_. The germ for the book seems first to have taken shape in this piece in STRIKE! magazine:
https://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/
I think it has echoes of some of your themes here, including the clash of creative impulse and an instinct for freedom with actual social arrangements. Parts of the book speak directly to conditions in academic institutions.
If that's of interest, I'd also recommend a previous book by Graeber, _The Utopia of Rules_, about bureaucracy touching on related matters.
Both deal with the imposition of certain business logics on all manner of human activity, which I think overlaps with your interest in modes of production/regulation (i.e. Taylorism).
Best,
Reed
https://fm2279.xyz/pages/about.html
On Wed, Nov 21, 2018 at 03:59:10PM +0000, Hillary Shaw wrote:
> Does anyone see any kind of connection here, regarding academia and especially academic employment, between these three extracts from the Internet? Perhaps there's a book in here somewhere, on how employment has changed since the inception of Taylorism?
>
> 1) Harrison Bergeron is the fourteen-year-old son,who is 7 feet (2.1 m) tall, a genius, and an extraordinarily handsome,athletic, strong, and brave person. He wants to live as an unimpeded humanbeing and does not want to obey the laws of the government, which has taken onthe responsibility of creating equality for the whole American society. He hasbeen jailed by the Handicapper General's office for planning to overthrow thegovernment. To eliminate any "unfair advantages", the HandicapperGeneral forces him to wear the most extreme handicaps reflecting hisextraordinary attributes: huge earphones and spectacles intended to make himhalf blind and give him tremendous headaches, disfiguring makeup in the form ofblackened teeth and a red rubber nose to mask his extraordinary looks, and somany weights to compensate his prodigious strength that they make him look morelike a junk yard than a man.
>
> 2) Driven to make unique contributions to their chosen fields, scholarshabitually pursue their individual interests, often with a good deal ofpassion. When seeking financial support for these endeavors, however, many findthat potential sponsors simply do not share their enthusiasm. “A sound concept,but it does not fit our current funding priorities,” (or similar phrases) arecommonly found in letters that deny funding. With the exception of a few careerdevelopment programs, funding agencies have little interest in advancing thecareers of ambitious academics. Sponsors will, however, fund projects that havea good chance of achieving theirgoals. This is why seasoned grant writers devote a good deal of time parsinggrant program announcements, highlighting passages that express what thesponsors want to accomplish, and what kind of projects they will pay for. Thenthe writers adopt a service attitude, finding ways to adapt their expertise tomatch the sponsor’s objectives. Finally, they test their ideas with grantprogram officers before deciding to write a proposal. As one of ouruniversity’s consistently successful grant writers put it: “My epiphany camewhen I realized that grant programs do not exist to make me successful, butrather my job is to make those programs successful.” 3) Schoolteachers are now burdened with considerable amounts of administrativetasks, over and above actually teaching. Increased forms to fill in, data toenter; more email contact with parents, also frequent curriculum changes.Teachers in the UK experienced an erosion of their autonomy to design coursesfrom the 1980s onwards as the National Curriculum was introduced with nationaltesting of pupils at ages 7, 11 and 14. Teachers themselves were subjected toinspection, monitoring, and ‘self-evaluation’. (McIvor, 2013: 53).
> Dr Hillary J. Shaw
> www.fooddeserts.org
>
>
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