Investing in the Cruel Entrepreneurial University

Abstract

As an intervention in the cruelty of financialized entrepreneurial capitalism, a number of scholars, most prominently Lauren Berlant and Randy Martin, have suggested a turn to what they each call the "lateral." Against the future-oriented aspirations of the entrepreneur and the regimes of evaluation tied to return on investment, they propose conceptualizations of present-oriented lateral movement and relationality as an alternative mode of life and value. Theorists working in performance studies make a related proposal for claiming a timespace prior to or next to (and thus at least provisionally outside) the circulation of capital that creates the possibility for an alternative inscription of our labor. This essay explores the potentials and limitations of these interventions by examining our attachments to and investments in the entrepreneurial university and our participation in its mundane institutional practices.