Antiakademismus

The triumph of the university is one of the great success stories of modern times. Nonetheless everyone is talking about its crisis; of its downfall even. An unhappy awareness has taken root in many faculties expressed in hostility towards the institution. Anti-academicism is all the rage, in particular among intellectuals.

Based on this diagnosis, the 15th Blankensee Colloquium will devote itself to the history and theory of anti-academism, a phenomenon that has existed as long as universities have. The scholars’ parodies of the Early Modern Age as well as various political attempts to disempower or abolish universities testify to this. However, the institution of the university has survived the armed and pacifist attacks of every political stripe more or less unscathed and ultimately emerged stronger from every confrontation. Anti-academism and the university seem to rely on one another. How could this co-dependency become a motor of theoretical renewal? What role models, movements, genres and institutions emerged from it? Are there other modes of academic self-understanding outside discourses over crises? Is there an anti-academism today that goes beyond a pose of obvious criticism? What do these questions mean for the university as an educational place, research center and utopia?

With François Cusset, Diedrich Diederichsen, Rosa Eidelpes, Patrick Eiden-Offe, Thomas Etzemüller, Marian Füssel, Eva Geulen, Julika Griem, Stefan Höhne, Rembert Hüser, David Kaldewey, Jürgen Kaube, Kader Konuk, Geoffroy de Lagasnerie und Nina Verheyen.

Detailed program and all participants at antiakademismus.hu-berlin.de

An event by Hanna Engelmeier (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt) and Philipp Felsch (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) in cooperation with Haus der Kulturen der Welt