“They Paint Sedition on the Walls”: Towards a University of “Immigrants”

While publicly funded institutions in India have provoked the punitive ire of the ruling Hindu Right and systematically invited acts of state terror, a new education policy drafted by the same ruling party advocates a wholesale return to a “liberal arts” curriculum. The essay attempts to demonstrate how the “liberal” has become the cultural logic of a communal-fascist regime, insofar as the regime is harnessing universities to its project of redefining citizenship as exclusionary, with a special rejection of the citizenship claims of Muslims. In this context, how might we rally our forces behind a hijacked “idea” of the university—and what are the possible futures of such a political maneuver? This essay suggests how a practice of imaginative labor at the university might be leveled not toward citizenship, but toward lessons in immigrancy. It will also address how a mass online transition—prompted by policy in the name of a pandemic—reconfigures rights of entry to this imaginative labor.

Enabling Social Justice from Within: Reflections on the Student Voice, Pedagogy of Consciousness and the Idea of the University in Democracy

The incidences of suicides by students from marginalized communities at Indian public universities indicate that the structural reforms have been insufficient in bringing social justice at universities and the situation demands a change in cognitive structures and processes that can mobilize shift towards just relations at the universities. This article aims to reflect upon pedagogy of consciousness developed by Paulo Freire and argue for its adoption by teachers to develop student voice that has the potential to bring social justice from within the universities. Following the interpretivist paradigm, the idea of the university given by Kant is explored to locate student voice and social justice within the framework of universities. The idea though places voice at core of university teaching learning process, limits its democratic potential by assuming apolitical role of the universities. Therefore, the author elaborates upon pedagogy of consciousness by Paulo Freire, to bring out its relevance in developing voice for social justice and rethinking the idea of the university. Through the analysis of in-depth interviews conducted with teachers and students at University of Delhi, the voices of students citing incidences of structural as well as epistemic injustice in the University are highlighted to develop the link between theory and practice. These voices point towards lack of spaces for expression of dissenting voices and understanding of these voices by teachers and students from privileged backgrounds. The article concludes with illustrating, how pedagogy of consciousness can develop this consciousness enabling praxis of transformation that brings political dissenting voices to the core of the idea of the university in democracy.

John Henry Newman: The Idea of a University: Book Review

Newman’s “The Idea of the University” is the essential classic document in the history of Western higher education. All over the world, the educational thoughts of universities are closely related to Newman, and modern authors’ classic understanding of the university concept is derived from this Book. At that time, academia was in an era of ideological confrontation. Debates were mainly based on the two themes of “can other schools’ thoughts be used for reference” and “humanities or science.” Newman gave a clear answer to this in the book and made a corresponding detailed discussion. Newman’s answer embodies Newman’s educational thoughts, which are formed under the guidance of personal, educational philosophy. Therefore, Newman’s educational philosophy is contained in his educational thoughts. Based on this, Newman’s educational philosophy is explored from the educational thoughts contained in Newman’s answers to the above two topics. Newman’s educational philosophy is embodied in his views on schools and disciplines. For other sects, Newman is loyal to knowledge, regardless of sect, learns from each other’s strengths, and innovates. Newman firmly opposes blindly denying the views of the humanities.

UNIVERSITY: GENESIS AND TRANSFORMATION OF IDEA

The article is devoted to the birth and transformation of the Idea of the University as an institutional form within the German spiritual culture of the 19th – 20th centuries. The author traces the history of the Idea of the University from the works of I. Kant (through the prism of his idea of the Enlightenment), then in the works of W. von Humboldt, the attempt to revive the Idea in the works of K. Jaspers, and the death of the idea during Nazism on the example of the “Heidegger case” The article specifically examines the basic principles of the University of W. von Humboldt – academic freedom and unity of science and education. The latter is considered not in a narrow academic sense, but in the classical – the formation of a person's image, chasing his appearance. W. von Humboldt assumed the unity of three universes: the universe of man, the universe of knowledge and the university as an institution that creates conditions for “solitude and freedom”. Further, the author shows the transformation of the university in the modern world in connection with the change in the time vector, the reorientation of the educational paradigm from the past to the future and the search, in this connection, of a new identity for universities. Despite the actual death of the classical idea of the University of W. von Humboldt, the author shows that this idea can be revived in a new model of an entrepreneurial university, which also contains the basic principle of W. von Humboldt, which presupposes a constant scientific search and the formation of a person for whom personal development remains a value.

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.

THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL PRINCIPLE OF THE IDEA OF A TRANSNATIONAL UNIVERSITY

The article examines globalization in the sector of education services and social and anthropological changes caused by it. The author proves the thesis that the national university transforms into the transnational one and estimates the role of anthropological dimension of the idea of the university in this process. The objective of the article is to discover the dialectical character of globalization in sphere of higher education and its influence on society and human. The main scientific methods of work: the historicalphilosophical and the philosophical-anthropological approaches. In summary, the author asserts about the change of the image of a person in the idea of the university, the transition to greater freedom and pluralism of meanings and goals of educational activity.

The Idea of the University as Incubator

We have been advised for some time now that, in order to withstand the economic, demographic, and other challenges they face, universities must continually innovate. Presidents and vice-chancellors must foster “disruptive innovation” if they are to ensure that their institutions survive and thrive. But how to create an innovative university, especially when institutional change of any kind proves to be a complex process with limited success stories. In order to bring about the kind of disruptive innovation that the current environment seemingly demands requires rethinking the idea of a university incubator. Universities might develop incubators not to generate new technologies or new businesses but new, innovative forms of the very idea of the university itself. In this model, the idea of the university becomes that entity that engages in the creation and nurturing of organizational novelty, novelty here referring to new forms of epistemological organization. The design and implementation of new organizational forms becomes the raison d'etre of the university.