Retooling the Humanities: The Culture of Research in Canadian Universities

Is market-driven research healthy? Responding to the language of "knowledge mobilization" that percolates through Canadian post-secondary education, the literary scholars who contributed these essays address the challenges that an intensified culture of research capitalism brings to the humanities in particular.

Retooling the Humanities is unique in the way that it brings Canada back into the international debate over post-secondary education. Stakeholders in Canada's research infrastructure—university, students, professors, and administrators; grant policy makers and bureaucrats; and the public who are the ultimate inheritors of such knowledge—are urged to examine a range of perspectives on the increasingly entrepreneurial university environment and its growing corporate culture.

Daniel Coleman is Professor of Canadian Literature, Canada Research Chair, Department of English and Cultural Studies, McMaster University. His creative memoir on reading, spirituality, and cultural politics, In Bed with the Word, came out in 2009 to wide acclaim. He lives in Hamilton.

Smaro Kamboureli is Professor with the School of English and Theatre Studies, Canada Research Chair, and Director of TransCanada Institute, University of Guelph. Her award-winning work, Scandalous Bodies: Diasporic Literature in English Canada, was republished in 2009. She lives in Toronto.

Daniel Coleman is Professor of Canadian Literature, Department of English and Cultural Studies, McMaster University. He lives in Hamilton. Smaro Kamboureli is Professor with the School of English and Theatre Studies, Canada Research Chair, and Director of TransCanada Institute, University of Guelph. Her award-winning work, Scandalous Bodies: Diasporic Literature in English Canada, was republished in 2009. She lives in Toronto.