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The REF is gross! It& #39;s moronic and it& #39;s bad for everyone. That& #39;s my thought for the day.
I mean, it& #39;s harmful, corrosive, & divisive. But it& #39;s also embarrassing; it makes me cringe, this denigration of the humanities & critique, this capitulation of the language that *we* have to describe the world, to the inappropriate metrics of science & social science
the language of & #39;methodology& #39; and & #39;findings& #39; is not appropriate to a literary essay; why are we having to pretend it is, even while knowing and acknowledging that it is not?
it matters, this resigned application of the wrong language to literary writing; it makes writers seem like slightly dappy researchers; and even if we all profess to & #39;know& #39; the REF is bullshit, the consistent application of wrong metrics to art is profoundly damaging
Related: if anyone who has read and liked Daddy Issues can tell me what my ‘findings’ are I’d be grateful
& the fact is that, regardless of how well given departments and individuals handle the universally hated REF process, it inevitably reproduces inequalities & thrives on pre-existing power structures
not least because, in order to do the REF, one has to fall in line with the assumption that different kinds of work have to defer to a single (& highly positivist) measure of success
& one has to go along with the fiction that using language instrumentally is OK as long as we all know it& #39;s instrumental
but that is not true; large swathes of critical enquiry are *about* language, about refusing certain kinds of language, & about refusing a purely instrumental & technocratic use of language
& many creative endeavours are likewise about refusing certain language games, & creating others
& so the grimness of the REF process is exacerbated for creative writers, who find themselves having not only having to go along with the moronic & troubling use of language the REF imposes, but also having to explain themselves to the & #39;discipline& #39; of their academic colleagues
this is the least of the REF& #39;s problems (there are so many to choose from!), but it& #39;s not unrelated to how the REF creates painful and divisive atmospheres, and exacerbates existing hierarchies of power and status
anyway, I like my job, and I hover between creative and critical and can be an academic with one hat on and a writer with another, but the REF fucks us all up, vote Labour, let& #39;s halt the marketisation of universities!
small mercies: I wasn& #39;t in a permanent post when Unmastered came out, can you imagine trying to make that book amenable to a REF narrative, I absolutely would have had a nervous breakdown
