The politics of thinking and the idea of the university as a heterotopia

Drawing on struggles between academe as a place that historically harbours critique and new public management that fosters instrumental knowledge, I reimagine the university as a counter-space for thinking. Initially, I deploy the work of Scott Lash to show how informational capitalism suffocates critique. Notwithstanding, his solution of <i>Informationskritik</i> resigns itself to the monism of technoculture. I therefore turn to Jacques Derrida’s idea of the university in relation to informationalisation. To ensure its autonomy, the university is supplementary to society, yet associated by its reflexivity that is on behalf of society. Finally, I invoke Michel Foucault’s notion of heterotopia, which tracks the tendency of society to instil homotopic spaces of sameness. Such a blueprint of the university as a heterotopia acts as a barometer of the critical credentials of reason that is manifest in social practices. In parallel, it carries forward Derrida’s idea for it and resuscitates a space for critical thinking.

The politics of thinking and the idea of the university as a heterotopia

Drawing on struggles between academe as a place that historically harbours critique and new public management that fosters instrumental knowledge, I reimagine the university as a counter-space for thinking. Initially, I deploy the work of Scott Lash to show how informational capitalism suffocates critique. Notwithstanding, his solution of <i>Informationskritik</i> resigns itself to the monism of technoculture. I therefore turn to Jacques Derrida’s idea of the university in relation to informationalisation. To ensure its autonomy, the university is supplementary to society, yet associated by its reflexivity that is on behalf of society. Finally, I invoke Michel Foucault’s notion of heterotopia, which tracks the tendency of society to instil homotopic spaces of sameness. Such a blueprint of the university as a heterotopia acts as a barometer of the critical credentials of reason that is manifest in social practices. In parallel, it carries forward Derrida’s idea for it and resuscitates a space for critical thinking.

Imagining the Commoning Library: Alter-Neoliberal Pedagogy in Informational Capitalism

The ascent of neoliberalism and informational capitalism has been largely successful in privatizing and re-regulating state-subject-market relations in ways that treat them “as if” they are a market situation. Here, we observe both the increasing commodification of digital forms of knowledge, as well as the commodification of the access to this knowledge. As predominantly non-commercial spaces, libraries serve the vital function of deflecting these developments. In this article, I argue for going one step further and imagining libraries as institutionalized and pedagogical spaces that can negotiate and transgress their institutional limits vis-à-vis public and private resources, discourses, policies, and technologies for the purpose of furthering the commons. In so doing, libraries serve as alter-neoliberal pedagogies, which democratize the construction and deconstruction of knowledge, as well as the access to them. Here, alternative literacies, ways of learning, and ways of being can be prefigured in practice. In imagining these conceptual potentialities of academic and public libraries, this article sets forth an initial agenda toward the commoning library.

Imagining the Commoning Library

The ascent of neoliberalism and informational capitalism has been largely successful in privatizing and re-regulating state-subject-market relations in ways that treat them “as if” they are a market situation. Here, we observe both the increasing commodification of digital forms of knowledge, as well as the commodification of the access to this knowledge. As predominantly non-commercial spaces, libraries serve the vital function of deflecting these developments. In this article, I argue for going one step further and imagining libraries as institutionalized and pedagogical spaces that can negotiate and transgress their institutional limits vis-à-vis public and private resources, discourses, policies, and technologies for the purpose of furthering the commons. In so doing, libraries serve as alter-neoliberal pedagogies, which democratize the construction and deconstruction of knowledge, as well as the access to them. Here, alternative literacies, ways of learning, and ways of being can be prefigured in practice. In imagining these conceptual potentialities of academic and public libraries, this article sets forth an initial agenda toward the commoning library.