---
layout: post
status: publish
published: true
title: Ann Wordsworth, Critical Theory, Faculty Contingency and the University in
  Ruins

wordpress_id: 2996
wordpress_url: https://www.martineve.com/?p=2996
date: !binary |-
  MjAxNC0wNi0wNCAwOToyOToyOSArMDIwMA==
date_gmt: !binary |-
  MjAxNC0wNi0wNCAwODoyOToyOSArMDIwMA==
categories:
- Academia
tags:
- university
- contingency
- faculty
comments: []
---
<blockquote>Bill readings was in the process of making final revisions to this book when he died in the crash of American Eagle flight 4184 on October 31, 1994. [...] To insist on talk as a part of the very fabric of this book is perhaps a step toward acknowledging the singularity of a voice, a place, and a time which would not exist <b>apart from</b> the University</p></blockquote>
<p> -- Diane Elam, 'Foreword' in Readings, Bill. 1996. The University in Ruins. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. p. vii. My emphasis.</p>
<blockquote><p>I have forborne to name the individuals who have influenced this book [...]. I will, however, take the risk of mentioning by name the person who first made me aware that the University could be a place to think: Ann Wordsworth. She taught me about something that Oxford called "Critical Theory" and she did so on a <b>short-term contract</b>, teaching in a <b>hut</b> in the garden of one of the <b>brick mansions</b> of North Oxford. I dedicate this book to her.</p></blockquote>
<p> -- Readings, Bill. 1996. The University in Ruins. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. p. x. My emphasis.</p>
<blockquote><p>Ann taught in a long wooden shed attached to a house in Crick Road, an environment that seemed steeped in radical thought.</p></blockquote>
<p> -- Jackie Hall, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2013/sep/22/ann-wordsworth-obituary">Obituary</a></p>
<p>What better place than <b>here</b>, what better time than now?</p>