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References of the abstract :
The rhetoric of competition in today’s academia values “top researchers” (ERC) and “top universities” (QS Rankings) above the rest. This type of register denotes that by all accounts, competition in academia is fierce and intensifying. This roundtable questions and debates how the qualitatively proportional terms of “top”, “best” or “cutting-edge” research rely heavily on the prerequisite of ordinary as its foundation or its flipside. Based on the collaboration under the research project, Out of the Ordinary. Challenging Commonplace Concepts in Anglophone Literature (Academy of Finland), this roundtable challenges the hegemonic way in which the rhetoric of the “top” in discussions of academic competition has become so commonplace and self-evident that it has in fact become ordinary, not special or ‘out of the ordinary’. Panelists from various European universities will engage with questions such as how to move beyond the axiomatic top-bottom juxtaposition reproduced in the prevalent academic rhetoric of competition? What does the increasing competition to produce “top” publications, projects, and researchers mean for English Studies and its future?
