The universities and the challenge of realism

Universities are often enjoined to ‘get’ with the ‘real world’. In this article, Mary Evans gives an account of interpretations of literary realism in order to consider the ‘coercive realism’ of the contemporary university. The prevailing assumptions that universities must contribute to the ‘real’ world are damaging the complexity of the process of learning and the idea of ‘knowledge’ that underpins it.