Articles by: Simon Cooper

Gerd Schroder-Turk and academic freedom The news that Murdoch University is suing one of its own staff, Gerd Schroder-Turk, after he made comments on an ABC program is yet another indication that universities are little more than corporatised accreditation factories whose relationship to knowledge is not framed by truth or critical inquiry but by the generation of capital-where academic freedom has been sacrificed to the university brand. After Schroder-Turk, an associate professor and a member…

Review(s) of: Seeing Beyond Picasso, Picasso's Vollard Suite, Art Gallery of Ballarat, 2019.

Developing a critique of technoscientific change The news that the CSIRO had unwittingly lent its name to the latest batch of Blackmores weightloss pills - pills that had no demonstrable effect or scientific validation - barely registers as a surprise in a world where we have become used to the distortion of scientific ideals by market imperatives. The aggressive push to commercialise the CSIRO under the direction of Larry Marshall - licensed to restructure the…

Review(s) of: The eulogy, by Janine Hosking, 2018.

Review(s) of: No end of a lesson: Australia's Unified National System of higher education, by Stuart Macintyre, Andre Brett and Gwilym Croucher (MUP, 2017).

The slow death of the university - as an institution serving the public good, as a place for independent thought, as a vehicle for critical and deep cultural inquiry - continues well into the era of the Turnbull government. As with climate change, there are a few deniers, but most people recognise that universities are not what they used to be. Like extreme weather events, there are occasional incidents that bring the university into the…