The Slow Professor

In The Slow Professor, Maggie Berg and Barbara K. Seeber discuss how adopting the principles of the Slow movement in academic life can counter the erosion of humanistic education.

Maggie Berg is a professor in the Department of English at Queen’s University. A winner of the Chancellor A. Charles Baillie Award for Teaching Excellence, she held the Queen’s Chair of Teaching and Learning from 2009 to 2012.
Seeber Barbara K. :

Barbara K. Seeber is a professor in the Department of English at Brock University. She received the Brock Faculty of Humanities Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2014.

‘The book is well researched, nicely written and speaks to an issue of central importance to those of us pursuing the academic life.’

Joseph D. O'Neil, University of Kentucky:

"The Slow Professor is a notable attempt at recovering humane culture and attentiveness in academic life. Berg and Seeber have begun an important conversation about the philosophical basis of scholarly work; their alternative to the corporate model is a welcome intervention."

Jamie Barnes, University of Sussex:

"Ultimately, Berg and Seeber’s book offers a vision of academia is a nurturing, relationally connected company of people seeking a deeper understanding of the world in which they live, a vision that will surely appeal to most."

Kathryn Tellin, University of Sussex:

"A real value of the book is its insistence that changes in university cultures are not about outlying individuals changing their practices alone but rather about the relationships between individuals and their struggles together to create different cultures through small acts."

June Edmunds, University of Sussex:

"[The Slow Professor] is a manifesto for maximizing meaningful productivity, in place of today’s hurried production of short-lived outputs."

Susie Scott, University of Sussex:

"Like slow TV, slow food and slow travel, Berg and Seeber argue that we can practice slow scholarship, by resurrecting the values of deep, reflective thinking, mindful self-awareness and playful creativity."

Rory J. Conces:

"It was after a quarter century of being a professor that I was fortunate enough to stumble upon The Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy by Maggie Berg and Barbara K. Seeber, a book that that expresses much of what I have found wanting in academic life. [It] is an enlightening commentary on the contemporary life of the university professor… [standing] as a dedicated attempt to revive a much-needed vision of the professoriate and the university."

Rick Salutin:
“It’s a beguiling book, written in controlled anger at the corporatized university, overrun by administrators and marketers.”

Howard A. Doughty:

“The Slow Professor recognizes the psychological strains of academic work, but subtly points toward explicitly political responses to the emotional toxins we absorb; but, it also avoids the fate of most subject-centred therapeutic exercises which are mainly courses in adaptation and resignation. Although it is no call to arms, no manifesto, nor a shout of defiance at the authorities, for insightful readers, the next step beyond self-awareness will be obvious.”

Barbara King:

"In 90 thrilling pages of text, Berg and Seeber describe the current corporatization of the college campus and urge professors to resist it with all they’ve got. ‘Thrilling’ isn't a word I often apply to books about higher education, but these pages galvanized me … I hope that college teachers will take time to savor The Slow Professor and talk about it with each other at faculty reading groups."

Rachel Hadas:

‘A welcome part of a crucial conversation.’

Christina Turner:

"The fact that precarious labour is becoming the norm in the academy impacts everyone, including those with tenure."

Emma Rees:

"What Maggie Berg and Barbara Seeber are doing in The Slow Professor is protesting against the "corporatization of the contemporary university", and reminding us of a kind of "good" selfishness; theirs is a self-help book that recognises the fact that an institution can only ever be as healthy as the sum of its parts."

Barbara Hunt:

"'Thrilling' isn't a word I often apply to books about higher education, but these pages galvanized me."

Colleen Flaherty:

"While The Slow Professor has already raised some eyebrows as an example of "tenured privilege," it’s at once an important addition and possible antidote to the growing literature on the corporatization of the university."

Kate Mattocks:

‘Thoughtful, reflective… The best thing this book accomplishes is its unabashed encouragement to talk to our colleagues in order to increase solidarity and togetherness in the combat against changing and challenging professional environments.’

Mike Marinetto, Lecturer in Business Ethics, Cardiff University:

"The Slow Professor has a manifesto-like quality. But there are more scholarly insights packed into its slim 90-odd pages than you get in longer academic tomes. A must-read, but do take your time."

Susan Prentice, Professor of Sociology, University of Manitoba :

"Maggie Berg and Barbara K. Seeber’s The Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy (University of Toronto Press) is a much-discussed manifesto that has launched a vitally needed conversation on the importance – and pleasures – of protecting open enquiry from the frantic pace of the modern academic assembly line."

Teresa Mangum, Director of the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, University of Iowa:

"I read this book with the intensity and engagement that I read a novel. It's a fresh and insightful study that reaches out to readers with wisdom as well as information."

Nancy Chick, University Chair in Teaching and Learning and Academic Director of the Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning, University of Calgary:

"I love this book. Mentors should give it to newly hired faculty members. Advisors should buy it for their graduating PhDs. Individual faculty should read it to reclaim some of their sanity."