Less Cambridge, more York: Leavis's later ideas about the university

Leavis’s name is synonymous with a resolutely negative verdict on mass higher education: he went on record as saying ‘There’s no redeeming the democratic mass university’ (The Living Principle, p. 7). What relevance then does Leavis have for the majority of us involved in a system of widening participation, whether as students, researchers, teachers, managers or other stakeholders? The key to answering these questions in a productive way lies in our understanding of Leavis’s time at York. It is the work of this period that opens a dialogue between Leavis and contemporary debate on higher education. Appreciating Leavis’s later and currently more neglected work undertaken at York gives pointers to ways in which he can begin to be a meaningful presence again in relation to our thinking about the ‘democratic mass university’.