Embedding Critique in the University: A New Role for Critical Marketing Education?

This paper critically re-examines the role of the university as a site of (declining) social, cultural and political power and influence in the aftermath of the development of the „entrepreneurial university‟. Although scholars have identified the dangers of such a scenario, few attempts have been made to offer a pragmatic solution to preserve, or even rejuvenate, the university as an agent of critique. This paper proposes a novel answer by arguing that a critical marketing education can take over this role in the academy where traditional critical agents like the arts and humanities are widely acknowledged to have failed. Using a historical-critical approach, and by conceiving of „critique‟ as a heterogeneous, multidimensional amalgam of both business and the humanities, the paper shows how a critical marketing education offers a pragmatic means of preparing university students to become active and critical voices of society.