Introduction: The Treadmill of Academic Production The treadmill. One of the most popular figures in academic work life. The origin of its notoriety is unclear. For some, the referent may be the aca- demic theory of the treadmill of production—a political-economic theory on labor sector restructuring and the intensification of environmental degradation coordinated with the development of new technologies since WWII. 1 For others, the treadmill takes the more banal, literal form of a giant spinning hamster wheel—a symbol of the relentless rat race for publications, the impossible pursuit of a tenure line job or promotion, or perhaps the deeply unsatisfying contest for merit review points and one of the proliferating institutional awards that dangle in the wind promis- ing the academic equivalent of employee of the month. 2 The treadmill’s fame might also be linked to the corporate culture, entre- preneurial spirit, and managerial strategies that characterize the appear- ance of the neoliberal university over the last several decades. In this sense, the treadmill of academic production evokes its gym-equipment equivalent typically encountered inside a twenty-four-hour strip-mall fitness center. This type of treadmill is a human reverse conveyor-belt machine that gen- erates resistance and is immured in an interactive console equipped with self-monitoring interfaces. It has been observed occupying higher learning environments today—in the hubs, pods, nodes, and engagements centers where people sport branded school lanyards, exercise vision statements, perform lightning talks, take “idea showers,” give elevator pitches, and champion the highly competitive impact agenda of individual or depart- mental research performance. 3 Wellness programs offered to university staff have particularly welcomed exercise treadmills, as a pressure-coping mechanism and instrument of self-responsibilized health and resilience— the solution to problems created by structural overwork. Whatever one’s associations with the treadmill of academic production, the image of a relentlessly revolving tread emblematizes a new kind of governmentality and temporality installed in academia—that of speedy scholarship, com- petitive individualism, auditing culture, and excessive deference to instru- ments of technical rationality and market values. 4 7 Waste-Time Excess Potential in Academic Production C. Greig Crysler and Shiloh Krupar