Universities as civic spaces: learning to think together

Internationalisation of Higher Education – Policy and Practice, 2024

This article explores the transformation of contemporary higher education space – in particular, it explores Bonnie Honig’s notion of the death or diminishment of “public things” (Honig, 2017) as they relate to the modern concept of the university. Following Honig’s (2017) work, we argue that the concept of the university, if it was ever to be considered to rest within the realm of the public, is currently being captured by political lobbyists and state and ultra conservative right non-state actors to redefine the idea of what we mean by the public and the university. The context for such forms of HE capture relate primarily to shifting geopolitics and new state norms – in this case, the rise of neo-nationalisms in a new age of extremes, with Hungary as a focal point.

Address given at Great St Mary's, The University Church, Cambridge, 11 March, 2014.

Almost all the problems we now face are collective problems – problems, that is, that cannot be resolved by individuals working in isolation. The global inter-connectivity of human life means that working together towards collective solutions is much more difficult and much more crucial than it was in the past. Our networks of inter-connectivity are no longer knowable and bounded communities, but boundless spaces the full communicative potential of which is unknowable. The emphasis on technical know-how (‘techne’) and propositional knowledge derived from theory (‘theoria’) ill-prepares us for confronting the collective problems we are experiencing and the collective solutions we are seeking. In this lecture I argue not only that we can learn to reason together, but that we must learn to reason together – and, crucially, that the university is one of the places within which this essential capability of deliberation, or what Aristotle termed ‘phronesis’, can and must be sustained and developed. [Revised version of this paper published in Kossek, B. and Zwiauer, C. (hg) Universitat in Zeiten von Bologna. Zur Theorie und Praxis von Lehr - und Lern Kulturen. Vienna: V&R Unipress pp.153-164

The Civic University

Springer briefs in education, 2022

This chapter explores some of the key issues that have beset English universities in the twenty first century with a summary of some key areas in Ricoeur's early philosophy and interventions in the 1960s. Comparisons and contrasts are made from the 1960s with current debates about free speech on campus in England: complaints from 2017 to 2022 from outside the university about both more and less free speech have multiplied, whilst there has been increasingly less discussion inside the university about how to converse well. Equality, diversity and inclusion are policy labels that are in conflict with Prevent, the UK's counterterror programme targeted at 'extremist' ideas that are nonetheless lawful. Keywords EDI • Habermas • Hallaq • Prevent • 'Woke' 2.1 The University as Marketplace In his 1968 preface to Conceptions de l'université (Designing the University), Paul Ricoeur quoted with approval Karl Jaspers' assertion that the university must be a place where teachers and their students can search for the truth together without constraint (Ricoeur 1968a, 10); but Ricoeur wondered if this idea was becoming problematic. He further mused that even if we decided this idea was not being upheld in good faith by European governments, it would still be necessary to retain the university, in order for us to be able to interrogate the possibility of free thought. He was optimistic that everyone should have access to university to discuss ideas openly. Fifty years on we are compelled to ask whether the university is still recognisable as a place for ideas and varieties of truth: 'the pursuit of truth,' Abdal Hakim Murad reflects, 'now seems set at the margins, thanks to the monetizing of the academy, or because of hyper specialisation and weak interdisciplinarity, or because of the ambient post-modernising culture in which the pursuit of truth is simply dismissed as a fool's errand' (Murad 2020, 237). There are many instructive contrasts between Ricoeur's dually idealistic and pragmatic understanding of the liberal university campus in 1968, and its realities in

Cultural and Pedagogical Inquiry, 2012

The disparaging impact of neoliberal intrusions in higher education has been exposed by many scholars from around the world. Austerity measures prescribing less public funding for a public utility such as university education are gradually turning university education into an elite commodity unaffordable to vulnerable communities. The disruption of education of the poor, minority ethnic groups and women has been vividly observed in the challenged nations of the global South such as in Africa. The noble conviction that education is a public good is being systematically threatened by the Euro-America socio-economic neoliberal doctrine advocating for corporatization and marketization of almost all human activity in pursuit of capital returns. The authors of this volume have successfully produced a collection of work that demonstrates the human hazards of the neoliberal restructuring of higher education currently being experienced around the globe. The analyses of the authors are anchored on the potential role of universities to serve as public spheres, to be sites of critique as well as places of knowledge creation with no concern for profit. This volume addresses the fundamental function of universities as global public spheres. Habermas's notion of the public sphere forms the basis for the authors' discussions of neoliberal influences on the university. At the core of their analyses, contributors analyze the degree to which the globalization of knowledge and attempts by neoliberal policy makers and corporate interests has eroded the transformative democratic potential of the university. The volume joins other publications that have unmasked the imperial and dominating attributes of neoliberalism. The different but connected case studies portray neoliberal restructuring of higher education as developed North/Western machinations to dominate and gain from the commercialized university. Though the volume is not divided into any sections, one can easily discern an organizational structure from the manner the chapters follow each other. Chapters 1 and 2 are introductory and provide a theoretical framing for the whole volume. In Chapter 1 the editors present their argument that not only is the potential to serve as an essential public sphere inherent in the university, but it is also the university's position as a site of critique and knowledge production that enables it to create public goods that are essential to the public welfare. In the second chapter Simon Marginson exposes and discusses Habermas's notion of the public sphere. The conception of a university is that it has the capacity to sustain criticism independent of the state and often directed toward it, while throwing up strategic options for the state to consider. In other words one measure of the university as a public sphere is the extent to which it provides space for criticism and challenge (p. 13). Public good ties universities into a larger process of democratization and human development. Though the whole volume deals with this idea of the university as a public sphere, it is in this chapter where Marginson provides a theoretical anchor that other authors utilize as the basis for their different discussions. This approach by the editors helped link coherently all the chapters to the theme of university and the public sphere. Readers can easily follow the discussions the various chapters are engaged in without each individual chapter being repetitive by addressing the guiding theme of the book. In Chapter 3 Brian Pusser argues that conceptualizing and realizing the university as a public sphere are the most significant challenges facing universities in the United States. Pusser posits that the realization of a public sphere in higher education calls for deconstruction of the

Studies in Philosophy and Education

Universities can sharpen their commitment to democracy through institutional change. This might be resisted by a traditional understanding of universities. The question arises whether universities have defining purposes that demarcate possible university policy, strategic planning, and priority setting. These are significant questions because while universities are among our most stable long-term institutions, there is little consensus on what they are, what they are for, and what makes them valuable. This paper argues that universities can in fact be organized around a wide variety of purposes without thereby becoming any less real as universities. Normative discourse around universities should therefore be unafraid to consider novel ideas that test the limits of our current university concept and our entrenched practices. The argument applies fresh insights from feminist philosophy. Haslanger’s (Haslanger, S. 2000. Gender and race: (What) are they? (What) do we want them to be? No...

2012

Paper delivered at the Roundhouse Conference on Critical Theory and Education: What are Universities For?, University of Leeds, 23 March, 2010