How many of us working in HE often struggle to survive rather than thrive? In challenging days of Neo-liberal times I kept asking ’[t]he question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy? (Albert Einstein, in Van Oech, 2011: 64) Hence in my research on ‘Myths, Madness, and Mourning in the Halls of Academe’, I sought to query the levels of un/conscious ‘denial’ regarding the effects of Parker’s (1997:4) rising tide of bellicose managerialism manifested in hierarchical lines of command and decision-making, centralization of power, massively increased bureaucracy, [and more] … and my lived ‘reality’ of being in the midst of it. For Jung, one cannot reduce the unconscious to its personal dimension; it is transcendent, and provides the vessels that carry us between ‘the realm of the unconscious and the phenomenal world of human experiences’. (Grey, 2008: 20) So, how did I get to this phenomenal world? How could I delve down through messy imbricated layers of personal ‘knowing’, and find a way to expose a ‘collective unconscious’ that surrounds experiences of being in an academic community?
I dreamt it all up! Here I explore the use of dreams to provoke ‘the irruption of transgressive data’ (St Pierre, 1997) in order to disturb and trouble performative discourses within the academy.
The International Education Studies Association
Supporting research in Education Studies
The International Education Studies Association
Supporting research in Education Studies