Manifestos for the Business School of Tomorrow

Manifestos for the Business School of Tomorrow

Fucking, weaving, boxing, masturbation and laziness. Did you ever wonder what is
happening in the university business school? According to the authors of Manifestos
for the Business School of Tomorrow
, recently published by Dvalin Press, there is a
revolution – or a whole series of revolutions – currently going on within Higher
Education. This is a most curious and perverse publication. According to the authors
of this study we should learn to embrace and celebrate these recent innovations in
the curriculum of business studies. Tony Blair is not going to be happy. You may
have thought that the business school was a sober and serious, industrious
institution – your children safely installed in classrooms learning all about strategic
planning, Net Present Value, the 5Ps of marketing, recruitment and selection or
Human Resource Management. But all is not what it seems. Students of business and
management studies today are actually learning all about desire and animality,
indifference and evil, vulgarity and masturbation. They are learning how to be queer
and jackass, how to self-abuse with horse tranquillizer, how to cultivate laziness. ‘It
is not as if this is anything new in terms of the business school’, writes Dr Campbell
Jones, one of the editors of this volume, ‘lecturers in business and management
studies have always taught a curriculum of insane irrelevance and utter stupidity’.
‘What is unique’, co-editor Dr Damian O’Doherty continues, ‘is that many have
suddenly woken up to this fact and have begun to make a virtue of this futility and
folly. Forget financial planning and personnel management. From boxing to
vulgarity this book might actually teach students how to survive in Blair’s Britain
and the world of military imperialism and global capital’.

The experience of reading this book is one that will almost certainly leave you
profoundly disturbed. You will undoubtedly be left feeling a little queasy and lightheaded.
As one reviewer wrote: ‘this book is dangerous and should be treated with
extreme caution. The editors and authors are deranged if not certifiable… but the
problem is, they might be right!’ If pre-sales interest is anything to go by this book is
likely to be a best seller. With only a limited print run of this volume planned by the
editors and publishers, e-bay is currently trading advance signed copies of the book
at offers over £500. In response to selling out of the first edition, the editors and
publisher have now released an electronic version that is free to download from
Dvalin Press
. As an antidote to corporate rhetoric and
government spin that ceaselessly intones about the importance of enterprise, hard
work, productivity and efficiency, this book is timely and critical, offering an
important series of essays and reflections on the state of the business school and
higher education in general. The Department of Education and Skills who advertise
their services with the Orwellian mantra ‘creating opportunity, realising potential
and achieving excellence’, have so far refused to comment on the implications of this
publication.