Bozalek, VivienneJonker, Francois2025-05-212025-05-212024https://hdl.handle.net/10566/20432This dissertation aims to contribute to the proliferation of scholarship concerned with the postphilosophical1 queering of normative hegemonies within higher education, by foregrounding a methodological interest in ‘how else’ to do higher education research, pedagogy and assessment. Creatively investigating how to do academia differently, this thesis challenges the teleological conception of learning as a pre-figured logical progression of predetermined outcomes, the centring of the bounded individual as the unitary subject of learning, as well as the commonplace reliance on representationalist logics that grant language the ability to capture meaning in its expansive fullness. These critical educational concerns are considered from the situated position in a private higher education institution, the Cape Town Creative Academy (CTCA), located in Cape Town, South Africa. The CTCA specialises in the delivery of bachelor’s and postgraduate qualifications within contemporary art and various design disciplines. This dissertation responds to the widespread concern over the neoliberal reform of universities, where the private higher education sector figures as the pinnacle entrepreneurial face of capitalised education. The South African private art and design school sector is a highly competitive market of (mostly) homologous qualification offerings. As such, the urgency for institutional differentiation results in the promotion of discourses of excellence—prioritising outcomes over process, individual achievement over communal learning, and marketable skills over critical praxis.enHigher educationCape Town Creative Academy (CTCA)South AfricaPrivate Higher Education InstitutionThe South African Qualifications AuthorityThesis