Academic culture

[MavisPennies]

Can anyone recommend a book or paper on the culture in academic institutions?
I'm thinking of something like 'watching the English'

Never seen one - I think it’d be tricky to write as they’re all so different.

There’s one written by an anthropologist about a scientific institute in Melbourne ( the Florey??) but I cannot remember the name …

Sorry, not much help!

I've not come across a book like this but "The Chair" on Netflix gets pretty close to some of the key aspects of academic culture. Its US based but lots still translates.

FWIW, I'd love to read a "Watching the Academics" book.

the old David Lodge books were a very funny version of academic culture

https://amzn.eu/d/iUCsiuG

Possession by AS Byatt is a bit satirical but gives you an idea.

I always think the academics in discworld books come pretty close!

Agree with The Chair and also there was a series on C4 called campus I think which was scarily close.

Mary Beard’s collected TLS columns, called It’s A Don’s Life or similar, plus a second one that I can’t remember the title of? Some things are quite specific to Cambridge but I always found lots of insight there (albeit I’m also in the humanities so perhaps her experiences are closer as a result).

ha! I used to have an office in the building David Lodge parodies in Changing Places. Windows did indeed fall out of it (if you know you know)

@YellowAsteroid Muirhead Tower?

There’s a novel by CP Snow called ‘The Masters’ which is about the succession to the master ship of a Cambridge college, it focuses on alliances and political strategising and is a fascinating analysis of power and institutions.

Mark Prins' "The Latinist" isn't primarily about this, but it has some very realistic descriptions of insecurity and precarity among young academics scrabbling for a future.

Pigeon warnings and the whole building swaying in the wind!

Try Dark Academia by Peter Fleming. Depressingly accurate.
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2021/09/05/book-review-dark-academia-how-universities-die-by-peter-fleming/

Fiction but Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis.

Was also going to say Discworld @Kipperthedawg !

Yup. The views were spectacular but the building was a mess. I gather it’s now being completely renovated. I would have dynamited it.

It’s a while series - The Strangers and Brothers series. Interesting but not light reading.

This is a report about the culture at just one institution but might be the sort of thing you're looking for (not my institution btw!)

i have to laugh at the irony of Alison Phipps co-authoring a study looking at institutional bullying….

Yes to Possession.

If you don't mind US stuff I liked Marcus Borg putting away childish things (about tenure)

Again if you don't mind novels ... Ali Hazelwood and Lessons in Chemistry

If you aren't actually looking for novels what about some of the science of science stuff? Lots of people write about research culture

while we are on the topic, there is a survey active from the government that wants to measure / improve research culture. So if you have strong opinions, you can share them here

Take part here: http://bit.ly/3QY9GLN

Thank you all so much for these recommendations! I will work my way through them. I did watch The Chair - very funny and I could see things in it that I recognise.
I've read sociology/anthropology of science type stuff (Bruno Latour etc) but I'm looking more for things about humanities which seems different. I come from a completely different sort of culture and find so much stuff baffling but also fascinating. I've never worked with such interesting (and odd) people! And the hierarchies and power plays people seem to make are way above my head/ level of competency.

Not disciplinary specific and probably a bit dated now, but Academic Tribes and Territories - I think by Paul Trowler

I love Changing Places. Pnin by Nabokov is so funny too.

I find Kathleen Stock to be an extremely prescient writer on present-day academic culture in Humanities/possibly SocSci in the UK. The pathological fear of going against the grain, the viciousness barely hidden under constant appeals to "kindness"... I am not as big on her GC material as some other posters here but I can completely see how her decision to disagree with the consensus led her to gain a more profound understanding of everything that's disfunctional in present-day Humanities academia.