Inaugural Lecture

Professor Alan Bradshaw
Royal Holloway Business School

Today, the fate of British university academics is entangled with endless rounds of auditing that find even its greatest 'stars' inadequate. Pressure and precariousness increasingly define the profession. This is the hyper-auditing era in which universities compete, where lecturers are more like service providers, where education is now a 'student experience', and universities are  brands.  The relationship of the university to the general intellect is increasingly alienated and subject to cynical cost-benefit ratios where we now fetishise the exchange value of everything and appreciate the use value of nothing.

In this context Alan Bradshaw asserts his Professorship in Marketing as one that must be developmental of critical thinking. He will argue that in this extraordinary age of the 'tech-bro' oligarchs, where sustainability and diversity goals are brushed aside and where academia itself becomes a site of AI-boosterism, the critical business school is arguably more needed than ever and must be asserted and defended. Alan shall therefore explain why the marketing department at Royal Holloway, itself a global leader for critical thinking, is a special place where he is proud to work. 

Admission is free, but booking is essential.