A transversal university? criticality, creativity and catatonia in the globalised pursuit of higher education excellence.

This chapter uses the concept of transversality to analyse developments in the increasingly globalised delivery of higher education (HE). Writing from the perspective of higher education provision in England, I first discuss the use of the term by Félix Guattari, before drawing on Gilles Deleuze’s use of the concept in connection with learning as an apprenticeship in signs. This analysis allows me to use a Deleuzo-Guattarian transversal ontology to critique drives for excellence, social mobility and student choice in higher education. I highlight connections between these increasingly ubiquitous demands and wider global trends of prosumption, liquefaction and dividualisation. Referring to the nature of this transversality in this connection, I stress the differential operation of transversal practices which emphasise productive forms of criticality and creativity in HE. Transversality therefore provides an impetus and a model for higher learning as a creative, rather than repetitive, process.