Thinking University Critically The University Community

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Carmel Ferguson
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1 Thinking University Critically The University Community IS THERE (STILL) ROOM FOR EDUCATION IN THE CONTEMPORARY UNIVERSITY? Exploring policy, research and practice through the lens of professional education. Seminar 3 SHRC, London

2 Theses 1. University and its lectures and seminars give space to a public discourse, discussion and critique a space of pedagogical experience in the community of studying. In light of current political questions, the university community can be seen as a public community. 2. The heterotopia of university relies on an ethos of critique (Foucault). It emerges in the context of a community of asking questions and thinking as a form of practice of judgment. At university, the ethos of critique as the most important function of the humanities is based on a twofold positioning regarding the subject matters (epistemology: knowledge) and regarding the own self (existence: Bildung).

3 Outline 1. Crisis of University 2. Thinking University? The Pedagogical Situation 3. Negativity: Learning as Experience (Günther Buck) 4. Co-existence The Community of questions (Eugen Fink) 5. Elsewhere of University 6. Heterotopia of University 7. Academic Critique

4 Thinking University? The Pedagogical Situation Where are we, when we think? (Hannah Arendt). In the process of thinking we are elsewhere. The relation between life and research manifests itself in this heterotopia of being in the world and being in thought as standing out (ecstasy). Standing out locates itself in becoming, in searching, in questioning, in the open and the uncertain. It constitutes itself in the dedication to the matter (Horkheimer) within the community of questions (Fink). Hannah Arendt: Vom Leben des Geistes. Vol. 1, Das Denken, München/Zürich 1989, pp. 193ff. Max Horkheimer (1952): Begriff der Bildung, in: Id.: Gesammelte Schriften edited by A. Schmidt and G. Schmid-Noerr, Frankfurt am Main, pp

Negativity: Learning as Experience (G. Buck) Unsolved problems, questions or even wonder and astonishment can be seen as a challenge for existing knowing-that and knowing-how.

5 Negativity: Learning as Experience (G. Buck) Unsolved problems, questions or even wonder and astonishment can be seen as a challenge for existing knowing-that and knowing-how. Disappointments of anticipations (Husserl), Errors, mistakes, irritations and things unready-to-hand (Heidegger) then become more than just unpleasant incidents within the process of successful practice and learning. They become a substantial part of it, as changes in habits and the reorganization and transformation of sedimentations or habitualizations are made possible through experience. If we look at it this way, negative experience is highly positive!

Co-existence The Community of questions (Eugen Fink) 5 fundamental phenomena and practices of human existence (Dasein, Fink, 1995): play, power, work, love, death, education (Fink, 1970).

6 Co-existence The Community of questions (Eugen Fink) 5 fundamental phenomena and practices of human existence (Dasein, Fink, 1995): play, power, work, love, death, education (Fink, 1970). community of questions : determined by power, society and culture and has its reference point in the collective plight of not-knowing and not-knowing-how. Negativity is the dominating thought here as well, as experience of the alien (in the discussion with others) and the other (in the discussion of subject matters). Education is thus characterized by difference and controversy. These controversies are those of subjects being situated in a socio-political space, which means that education becomes a democratic process.

7 Elsewhere of University The confrontation with the subject matter always contains a provocation and irritation through the same. In this provocation, foreignness and vulnerability manifest themselves for all involved: Foreignness in the confrontation of the other and the others in a plural and different world is standing out into openness and uncertainty. starting a joint process of thinking, questioning and searching. In ecstasy (standing out), the professor existentially puts herself or himself at risk, exposes herself or himself to the questions, answers and critique of the subject matter and of the students and vice versa.

8 Heterotopia of University A decolonization of university as a critical approach to its colonial and racist heritage can thus not mean de-canonizing contents and entering into a therapeutic relationship with its members. The twofold contextualization (historically or cultural and recent) is combined with a twofold positioning (critical towards the subject matter, texts and opinions and critical towards one s own norms and evaluations). Only then can an orientation in the heterotopic space of thought and experience take place.

Academic Critique Critique as an ethos of difference and thinking as practice and a boundary attitude. The ethos of critique manifests itself in the joint process of practicing judging.

9 Academic Critique Critique as an ethos of difference and thinking as practice and a boundary attitude. The ethos of critique manifests itself in the joint process of practicing judging. Its ethos consists of bracketing (epoché) own and foreign dogmatisms, discriminations, racisms and colonialisms. In this, the recognition of the other (he/she/it) as other is constituted, particularly because one is not in agreement. Standing out into an open and uncertain space of thought. This elsewhere marks the significance of studying as a communal and public practice.

10 Invitation 5 th International Symposium on Phenomenological Research in Education Humboldt-University of Berlin 1 st 3 rd April 2019 Feeling Emotion Mood Phenomenological and pedagogical perspectives Call for papers: Please send the abstract to: malte.brinkmann@hu-berlin.de

11 Thank you for your attention! Find more here: BLOG: Phenomenolgical Pedagoggy: YouTube channel:

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