Abstract In his history of the twentieth century as an ‘age of extremes’, Eric Hobsbawm speculates that people born in the mid-nineteenth century who survived into the gloomy interwar period were perhaps most shocked by the collapse of the values and institutions of the liberal civilisations whose progress their century had taken for granted. There are further reasons why older generations would have been puzzled by the decline of the liberal order. First, the advance of industry and technology in the second half of the nineteenth century resulted in efficient national economies that generated considerable wealth and prestige and fueled the frenzied expansion of European and American spheres of influence. In addition, it was precisely the bloody conflagration brought about by German Nazism that would serve as an unintended catalyst for its gradual transformation.
As Mittelman rightly observes, neoliberal practices of repurposing universities in pursuit of the impossible goal of world-class standing – the gold standard for educational policy in the global age – have put the soul of the academy at risk. He also makes an important point when he argues that necessary 'corrective steps' must push far beyond the palliative rhetoric of 'reformist reforms' clothed in neoliberal platitudes about greater 'stakeholder' input and the saving grace of digital technology. Still, this article extends Mittelman's constructive discussion of 'plausible alternatives' by making the case for the significance of transdisciplinarity in the practical realization of one of his five corrective steps: the 'commitment to cultures of creativity'. Indeed, a deep and enduring commitment to transdisciplinarity must play a major role in pushing back against the prevailing neoliberal academic order.
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Via approximately 80 entries, the SAGE 21st Century Reference Series volumes on geography highlights the most important topics, issues, questions and debates any student obtaining a degree in this field need to have mastered for effectiveness in the 21st century. The purpose is to provide undergraduate majors with an authoritative reference source that will serve their research needs with more detailed information than encyclopedia entries but not so much jargon, detail, or density as a journal article or a research handbook chapter. Key features: - Curricular-driven to provide students with initial footholds on topics of interest in writing essays and dissertations, in consulting to determine directions to take in pursuing a senior thesis, graduate degree and so on - Comprehensive to offer full coverage of major subthemes and subfields within the discipline of geography, including regional geography, physical geography, global change, human and cultural geography, economic geography and locational analysis, political geography, geospatial technology, cartography, spatial thinking, research methodology, geographical education and more. - Uniform in chapter structure to make it easy for students to locate key information, with a more-or-less common chapter format of Introduction, Theory, Methods, Applications, Comparison, Future Directions, Summary, Bibliography and Suggestions for Further Reading, and Cross References. - Available in print and electronic formats to provide students with convenient, easy access.