Robert Snell in conversation

Robert Snell is a psychotherapist and art historian. His review of the book "L'Anti Livre Noire" (edited by Jacques Alain Miller, and published by Seuil, 2006) mixes his wonderful wit and erudition, and led me to Brighton to meet him during the town's vibrant Festival earlier this year. Here we wonder whether a certain section of the British might have lost their ability to deploy and enjoy some vitriol.

RS: "... the Miller book was a relief for me to read because the writers don’t seem to be worrying about offending anyone. They
are speaking clearly and making an open attack on a declared enemy. So, it is also a rant. Maybe in England at the moment it is not possible to do that. In France it seems ok to have a fight. It is very difficult to remain calm when someone states boldly that ‘CBT is the treatment of choice’. It’s such a meaningless phrase, and begs all kinds of questions - it comes at you like a slab of concrete. ... What was so good about the Anti-Livre noir was the humour and the irony, and the pleasure that came through. They are engaged in a battle, but not without humour.

JL: Yes, humour is going to be useful. At the moment many of us seem a bit paralysed, unable to think when faced with this demand for evidence and the need to know everything in advance.

RS: Humour, yes, and poetry probably... Keats’s ‘negative capability’ which Bion was so fond of invoking is still as a good a place to start as any: “negative capability, that is when a man is capable of being in doubt and uncertainty without idle reaching after fact and reason...”



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Richard Gombrich: British Higher Education Policy (2000)

The blog heading (above) is linked to the text of a talk given by Richard Gombrich in Tokyo, 2000: British Higher Education in the last 20 years: the murder of a profession. I came across it last year whilst looking for facts and figures on the changing context of British higher education - the enormous increase in numbers of students now attending universities, the simultaneous reduction in library funding, the shift to contract work for staff, and the rise of the RAE and QAA. Such major changes cannot help but have consequences for a country, and I found this talk enormously useful for gathering together the major factors that have altered the structure of higher education. It was also extremely interesting for the anecdotal evidence it provides about on the fictional nature of the RAE. Michael Power (see below) has written consistently on this and has steadily uncovered the structural impossibility within the logic of the audit function. Richard's talk includes some examples of the way that this pressure forces a fabrication into existence whilst also insisting it is treated with the weight of a fact.

Marilyn Strathern: audit cultures

This entry is linked to a conversation between Marilyn Strathern, Pierre-Gilles Gueguen and myself. Marilyn talks about the impact of the audit culture on her work in British universities, and the changes this is making on both the discipline and the topic of anthropology. The administrative function has steadily encroached on the academic role and the impact of this is made clear on the credibility of the subject.

Michael Power: audit explosion

This post is linked to the transcript of a conversation between Michael Power and Roger Litten. This fascinating discussion touches on issues about audit culture and wider questions for society and subjectivity, and poses questions about psychoanalysis and society. The conversation is one of a series that are taking place in preparation for a meeting in London on 20th September, which Michael will also be speaking at. If you would like to leave comments or questions as a consequence of reading it, please make use of this blog to do so.