A Schizocartography of the Redbrick University Campus Tina Richardson
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1 The Unseen University: A Schizocartography of the Redbrick University Campus Tina Richardson Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Leeds School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies April 2014 2 The candidate confirms that the work submitted is her own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. © 2014 The University of Leeds and Tina Richardson The right of Tina Richardson to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. 3 Acknowledgements Firstly, I thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council for funding my PhD and the University of Leeds for putting my research proposal forward for consideration. I am immensely grateful for all the support, advice, critique, patience and friendship that my supervisor Dr. Claudia Sternberg has shown me during my PhD and since returning to education. She has kept me focused and been a complement to my often wandering thought processes. I would also like to thank Dr. Barbara Engh for being my second supervisor, and for the help and opportunities she has extended to me during my time at Leeds, and Dr. Andy Evans for comments and support. I also extend my appreciation to the lecturers in The School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies who have opened my eyes to the world, treated me as an equal and also allowed me the freedom to explore my own interests, even when I was taking risks. In addition I would like to credit the speakers, urban walk leaders and audience of Leeds Psychogeography Group. They have inspired and sustained me through participating in the group. I would especially like to recognise those who attended the campus dérives that have become part of this thesis, in particular Tim Waters for his help in the area of neogeography. I am also grateful to individuals and organisations who have generously allowed me to include their images, especially the University of Leeds for giving me permission to use all the copyrighted material. Many people have provided me with historical information about the University of Leeds who I would like to acknowledge: Jon Owen, Roger Boyle, Peter Nix and Neil Maughan. I would especially like to thank Dr. Chris Hammond for his generosity in giving me my own copy of Chamberlin, Powell and Bon’s University of Leeds Development Plan 1960 and for Stuart Bravender in Estates Services for his patience in responding to my endless list of questions about the campus. I am grateful to Dr. Paul Mullins at Indiana State University for granting permission to include so much of the work he did with his own students in my thesis. Also, I would like to show my appreciation to the undergraduates who partook in the campus mapping exercise and the psychogeographical survey. Finally, an immeasurable thank you to Jane Vinson, to wine manufacturers around the world and to lovely little Sister Moonshine who kept me sane over the past few months and who was much more effective and cheaper than therapy. 4 Abstract This thesis examines the tensions between the discourse of Higher Education (HE) in Britain and how the university is physically manifest. Using Bill Readings’s concept of “excellence” from The University in Ruins (1996), it critiques the corporate oriented contemporary university in an attempt to challenge its neoliberal rhetoric. The narratives and processes that support the concept of the corporatised university – whether they appear in the form of its relationship with industry, in the performative measures applied to teaching or in the situating of the student as consumer – will be examined by using the University of Leeds campus. Using archived documents, historical information and psychogeographical methodology, a poststructuralist analysis is provided of the Redbrick University campus based on its origins in the Civic University model of HE. As well as including spatial theorists from the field of urban theory and postmodern geography, the main poststructuralist thrust will be from Félix Guattari – the schizoanalysis he carried out in the institution of psychiatry and his work on molecular revolutions. The methodology will include analysis in the form of urban walking and theories about walking practices, which will include the work of the Situationist International (1957-1972). The outcome of the project appears takes the form of a discourse analysis and semiology of university representations. This thesis offers a supplementary social history of the campus and a critique of university urban development. It provides a view of the campus that is other to the typical one, demonstrating that it can be a place where people challenge conventional routes and express their desire to be creative in response to university space. This schizocartography reveals the hidden university campus and suggests that there are minoritorian politics in operation that challenge dominant discourses and how they appear spatially. 5 Table of Contents LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS .................................................................................................................................. 6 LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................................................. 8 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ................................................................................................................................. 9 PROJECT AND THESIS OUTLINE .............................................................................................................10 INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................................... 10 THE AIMS AND SCOPE OF THE PROJECT ........................................................................................................... 12 THE THEORETICAL BACKGROUND TO THE THESIS ............................................................................................... 24 CASE STUDY, ARCHIVAL MATERIAL AND THEORETICAL APPLICATION ...................................................................... 35 WALKING AS METHOD AND CRITICAL PRACTICE ................................................................................................ 46 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE REDBRICK UNIVERSITY AND ITS CAMPUS .................................................64 DEFINING THE CIVIC AND REDBRICK UNIVERSITY ............................................................................................... 65 The Origins in the Civic Colleges ....................................................................................................... 65 The Influences on Redbrick in the 20th Century ................................................................................. 70 A PROPER PLACE FOR A UNIVERSITY ............................................................................................................... 72 THE SPACE OF HIGHER EDUCATION ................................................................................................................ 80 Postwar Expansion and the Campus ................................................................................................. 80 The Culture of Planning .................................................................................................................... 96 The Identityscape of the New Campus ............................................................................................ 107 Negotiating Brutalist Space ............................................................................................................ 113 The Sphere of Production ................................................................................................................ 120 FINDING ST GEORGE’S FIELD....................................................................................................................... 124 Where is the Cemetery? .................................................................................................................. 124 The Acquisition of the Cemetery ..................................................................................................... 131 In Loving Memory of a Dear Sister .................................................................................................. 144 THE FABRIC OF THE POSTMODERN UNIVERSITY ............................................................................................... 150 The Selling and Branding of Place ................................................................................................... 150 Receptors of Visual Effects .............................................................................................................. 152 The Random Play of Signifiers ........................................................................................................ 158 A SCHIZOCARTOGRAPHY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS ..................................................................... 168 MAPPING THE CAMPUS ............................................................................................................................. 168 Maps Transform History Into Nature .............................................................................................