300693 RC: Universities as sites of knowledge (S) (WiSe 2023/2024)

Universities are usually described as sites where academic knowledge is produced and disseminated. But universities are also social spaces where extra-curricular forms of knowledge are re-produced and contested. Material / spatial and temporal dimensions (studying is a process) are important to consider: the materiality of university premises is significantly shaped by historical dimensions comprising manifold symbols (monuments, plates, ornaments) that affect the teaching, research and the manifold social encounters. It has a significant sensory power that can enhance or reduce the sense of belonging to the academic community. As a social space, universities are shaped by different forms of normativities informed by historical formations such as colonial forces, patriarchy, or by canonical hierarchical orders within the disciplines. These are mirrored in the curricular dimensions of academic learning. Their power often prevents critical questioning of the academic ‘rules of the game’ (P. Bourdieu).
This colloquium attempts to map out universities as sites where different kinds of knowledge are re-produced and contested, and it enquires how the social encounters are shaped in this process. It begins with a reflection on the social dimensions of the university sites and on the normativities at work. Building upon historical perspectives, the contemporary widening of higher education will be considered on the basis of examples revealing how especially race, ethnicity, caste, class, and gender mould the social life of universities – while still being comprised within more or less rigid organisational frameworks.