This special issue assembles eight papers which provide insights into the working lives of early career to more senior academics, from several different countries. The first common theme which emerges is around the predominance of ‘targets’, enacting aspects of quantification and the ideal of perfect control and fabrication. The second theme is about the ensuing precarious evocation of ‘terror’ impacting on mental well-being, albeit enacted in diverse ways. Furthermore, several papers highlight a particular type of response, beyond complicity to ‘take freedom back’ (the third theme). This freedom is used to assert an emerging parallel form of resistance over time, from overt, planned, institutional collective representation towards more informal, post-recognition forms of collaborative, covert, counter spaces (both virtually and physically). Such resistance is underpinned by a collective care, generosity and embrace of vulnerability, whereby a reflexive collegiality is enacted. We feel that these emergent practices should encourage senior management, including vice-chancellors, to rethink performative practices. Situating the papers in the context of the current coronavirus crisis, they point towards new forms of seeing and organising which open up, rather than close down, academic freedom to unleash collaborative emancipatory power so as to contribute to the public and ecological good.

中文翻译：

---

表演大学：学术界的“目标”、“恐怖”和“夺回自由”

本期特刊汇集了八篇论文，为来自不同国家的更资深的学者提供了对早期职业生涯的见解。出现的第一个共同主题是围绕“目标”的主导地位，制定量化方面以及完美控制和制造的理想。第二个主题是关于“恐怖”的随之而来的不稳定的唤起对心理健康的影响，尽管以不同的方式制定。此外，几篇论文强调了一种特定类型的回应，超越了“夺回自由”（第三个主题）的共谋。随着时间的推移，这种自由被用来主张一种新出现的平行形式的抵抗，从公开的、有计划的、制度性的集体代表到更非正式的、承认后的协作、隐蔽、反空间（虚拟和物理）形式。这种抵抗以集体关怀、慷慨和对脆弱性的拥抱为基础，由此形成了一种反思性的集体性。我们认为，这些新兴实践应该鼓励包括副校长在内的高级管理人员重新思考绩效实践。将论文置于当前冠状病毒危机的背景下，它们指向新的观察和组织形式，这些形式打开而不是关闭学术自由，以释放协作解放力量，从而为公共和生态利益做出贡献。