Higher Education in Liquid Modernity

Liquid Education and Higher Education

Based in sociologist Zygmunt Bauman’s theory of liquid modernity, this volume describes and critiques key aspects and practices of liquid education--education as market-driven consumption, short life span of useful knowledge, overabundance of information--through a systematic comparison with ancient Greek paideia and medieval university education, producing a sweeping analysis of the history and philosophy of education for the purpose of understanding current higher education, positing a more holistic alternative model in which students are embedded in a learning community that is itself embedded in a larger society. If liquid modernity has left a vacuum where, according to Bauman, the pilot’s cabin is empty, this volume argues that no structure is better positioned to fill this vacuum than the university and outlines a renewed vision of social transformation through higher education.