Writing is trapped in the lexicon of the h-index, I index and other impact metrics such as grant dollars won, prizes won and so on. There is a life of the mind, beyond the violence of the metric, an Arundhati Roy never did a PhD, but PhDs are written on her work.
Scholarship has lost it’s way, weaponised beyond redemption, whereas it was supposed to offer alternative futures such as the era of wars, or as Roy wrote in the FT article during the pandemic, a portal to a future.
Writing is about giving hope for an alternative, when we are in the midst of polycrisis. Where are the new frameworks or models to grapple with the change, apart from recycling the same ad nauseum?
Is academia truly doing its job, beyond this ranking and that publication? And a grant proposal to be won?
Change Thinker 