Publish or perish: the puzzle of academic productivism

Abstract

This paper describes the restructuring of the conditions and procedures for the current work of professors in higher education, which introduces management logic to teaching. It shows how this new logic causes professors to fall physically and mentally ill. For this purpose, it analyzes the recent transformations in the labor world and how they directly affect the University Reform undertaken by the presidential terms of the Workers’ Party. The service currently offered in Brazilian public universities (2016) was investigated, and professors from various courses and universities (2015-2016) were interviewed about the transformations that have occurred in their work. The result shows that intensification and deterioration of work are currently present throughout the academic work and that teachers are aware that their work, nowadays, has become a source of physical and mental diseases. However, they refuse to seek for help in order not to be stigmatized because they did not tolerate the new ways of teaching work in universities.