Free space in the academy
- Authors: Janz, Bruce B
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Academic Freedom -- South Africa Universities and colleges -- South Africa Equality Liberty Education and state -- South Africa Education, Higher -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/848 , vital:19996
- Description: “Academic freedom” does not mean the same thing to everyone. There are, to be sure, a few who argue against it. Sandra Korn, in the Harvard Crimson last year, argued that we should abandon academic freedom in favor of academic justice. She argues that we have reached a consensus on issues such as racism, classism and sexism, and so to promote racist or classist or sexist views under the guise of “academic freedom” is to ignore a higher standard and more importantly to ignore the fact that academic freedom is always couched in political realities, and is never the dispassionate exercise of reason and the pursuit of knowledge. It always serves an agenda, and so if that is the case, it should serve the agenda of justice, particularly justice for disadvantaged and marginalized people. Her online article, when I last looked, had almost 1300 comments, and had inspired commentary from a number of other publications. You can imagine the range of these comments and reactions: everything from “this is long overdue” to the newest favorite insult circulating the internet, “she’s just another Social Justice Warrior (SJW).”
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Janz, Bruce B
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Academic Freedom -- South Africa Universities and colleges -- South Africa Equality Liberty Education and state -- South Africa Education, Higher -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/848 , vital:19996
- Description: “Academic freedom” does not mean the same thing to everyone. There are, to be sure, a few who argue against it. Sandra Korn, in the Harvard Crimson last year, argued that we should abandon academic freedom in favor of academic justice. She argues that we have reached a consensus on issues such as racism, classism and sexism, and so to promote racist or classist or sexist views under the guise of “academic freedom” is to ignore a higher standard and more importantly to ignore the fact that academic freedom is always couched in political realities, and is never the dispassionate exercise of reason and the pursuit of knowledge. It always serves an agenda, and so if that is the case, it should serve the agenda of justice, particularly justice for disadvantaged and marginalized people. Her online article, when I last looked, had almost 1300 comments, and had inspired commentary from a number of other publications. You can imagine the range of these comments and reactions: everything from “this is long overdue” to the newest favorite insult circulating the internet, “she’s just another Social Justice Warrior (SJW).”
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Thinking academic freedom
- Authors: Lange, Lis
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Academic Freedom -- South Africa Universities and colleges -- South Africa Equality Liberty Education and state -- South Africa Education, Higher -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/784 , vital:19990
- Description: I have titled this lecture Thinking Academic Freedom, because I would like to make thinking in the Arendtian sense the axis along which to organise this exposition. It was interesting for me that when I sent the title of the lecture I was asked whether I meant thinking or rethinking. It is true that we tend to rethink, revisit and review in the titles of our lectures and papers. This usually means that the accent is not so much on the act of thinking but on the object we are trying to examine. For this occasion, I would like to make the act of thinking itself as important an aspect of the lecture as the issue of academic freedom itself. What interests me is to explore the nature of our work as academics and how this relates to the notion of academic freedom. So, this is my proposed itinerary: I will first stop to flag some of the issues we all know about, current debates on academic freedom which inevitably constitute one layer of the background for these reflections; then I would like to explore with the lens of Hannah Arendt's political thinking the meaning of freedom and thinking in relation to the life of academics. I will then complicate matters further by jumping from Arendt to Pierre Bourdieu's Homo Academicus, after which I hope to land in the not too comfortable terrain of a call to action.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: Lange, Lis
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Academic Freedom -- South Africa Universities and colleges -- South Africa Equality Liberty Education and state -- South Africa Education, Higher -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/784 , vital:19990
- Description: I have titled this lecture Thinking Academic Freedom, because I would like to make thinking in the Arendtian sense the axis along which to organise this exposition. It was interesting for me that when I sent the title of the lecture I was asked whether I meant thinking or rethinking. It is true that we tend to rethink, revisit and review in the titles of our lectures and papers. This usually means that the accent is not so much on the act of thinking but on the object we are trying to examine. For this occasion, I would like to make the act of thinking itself as important an aspect of the lecture as the issue of academic freedom itself. What interests me is to explore the nature of our work as academics and how this relates to the notion of academic freedom. So, this is my proposed itinerary: I will first stop to flag some of the issues we all know about, current debates on academic freedom which inevitably constitute one layer of the background for these reflections; then I would like to explore with the lens of Hannah Arendt's political thinking the meaning of freedom and thinking in relation to the life of academics. I will then complicate matters further by jumping from Arendt to Pierre Bourdieu's Homo Academicus, after which I hope to land in the not too comfortable terrain of a call to action.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
Academic freedom and the enclosure of knowledge in the global university
- Authors: Federici, Sylvia
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: Academic Freedom -- South Africa Universities and colleges -- South Africa Equality Liberty Education and state -- South Africa Education, Higher -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/773 , vital:19989
- Description: A discussion of 'academic freedom' is timely as everywhere, across the planet, this long fought-for principle is under siege. Trends, already emerging in Africa in the 1980s, are extending to every part of the world, contributing to what we can call 'a global enclosure of knowledge. ' This is the restriction of access to education to the 'happy few,' as knowledge and education are becoming commodified and profitability is becoming the sole logic by which the university is structured. Here I examine the most salient ways in which academic freedom is affected by these developments (with special reference to the United States) and, most important, how we can resist them. First, however, I consider what we mean by 'academic freedom,' since it is a concept that has been evolving, taking on new meanings, and is presently used with different connotations.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
- Authors: Federici, Sylvia
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: Academic Freedom -- South Africa Universities and colleges -- South Africa Equality Liberty Education and state -- South Africa Education, Higher -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/773 , vital:19989
- Description: A discussion of 'academic freedom' is timely as everywhere, across the planet, this long fought-for principle is under siege. Trends, already emerging in Africa in the 1980s, are extending to every part of the world, contributing to what we can call 'a global enclosure of knowledge. ' This is the restriction of access to education to the 'happy few,' as knowledge and education are becoming commodified and profitability is becoming the sole logic by which the university is structured. Here I examine the most salient ways in which academic freedom is affected by these developments (with special reference to the United States) and, most important, how we can resist them. First, however, I consider what we mean by 'academic freedom,' since it is a concept that has been evolving, taking on new meanings, and is presently used with different connotations.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
The Role of Universities in a Transformed Post School Education and Training System
- Authors: Nzimande, Blade E
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: Academic Freedom -- South Africa Universities and colleges -- South Africa Equality Liberty Education and state -- South Africa Education, Higher -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/762 , vital:19988
- Description: Over the past two years my Department has been conceptualising and building a single system comprising of all institutions involved in post-school education and training. The inevitable changes have affected some of the institutions and institutional types more than others, but it will inevitably affect all of them, I believe for the better. We are aiming at creating an integrated, accessible, flexible, differentiated and highly articulated system of post school education and training which will benefit our youth, our society more generally and our economy. This lecture talks to the role we see for universities in this transformed system.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
- Authors: Nzimande, Blade E
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: Academic Freedom -- South Africa Universities and colleges -- South Africa Equality Liberty Education and state -- South Africa Education, Higher -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/762 , vital:19988
- Description: Over the past two years my Department has been conceptualising and building a single system comprising of all institutions involved in post-school education and training. The inevitable changes have affected some of the institutions and institutional types more than others, but it will inevitably affect all of them, I believe for the better. We are aiming at creating an integrated, accessible, flexible, differentiated and highly articulated system of post school education and training which will benefit our youth, our society more generally and our economy. This lecture talks to the role we see for universities in this transformed system.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
On academic freedom
- Authors: Pityana, Barney
- Date: 2008
- Subjects: Academic Freedom -- South Africa Universities and colleges -- South Africa Equality Liberty Education and state -- South Africa Education, Higher -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/751 , vital:19987
- Description: Traditionally, higher education has formed the vanguard of ideological persuasion and even indoctrination, in support of political and social change. We should not be surprised then, that the converse also applies. Where an existing order is threatened, those intellectuals who do not toe the line are often vilified, marginalised and even worse. Many of the great revolutions have commenced with a thorough purging of intellectuals. History will testify to that. Furthermore, where the State funds higher education institutions, then notions of academic freedom will always be tempered by the expectation of some sort of reciprocal loyalty.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
- Authors: Pityana, Barney
- Date: 2008
- Subjects: Academic Freedom -- South Africa Universities and colleges -- South Africa Equality Liberty Education and state -- South Africa Education, Higher -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/751 , vital:19987
- Description: Traditionally, higher education has formed the vanguard of ideological persuasion and even indoctrination, in support of political and social change. We should not be surprised then, that the converse also applies. Where an existing order is threatened, those intellectuals who do not toe the line are often vilified, marginalised and even worse. Many of the great revolutions have commenced with a thorough purging of intellectuals. History will testify to that. Furthermore, where the State funds higher education institutions, then notions of academic freedom will always be tempered by the expectation of some sort of reciprocal loyalty.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
African universities and the challenges of a developmental state
- Authors: Pandor, Naledi
- Date: 2005
- Subjects: Academic Freedom -- South Africa Universities and colleges -- South Africa Equality Liberty Education and state -- South Africa Education, Higher -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/729 , vital:19985
- Description: Universities do not exist in vacuum; they are a fundamental part of the development structures of any society in which they exist. History has shown that it is impossible for universities to seek isolation or insulation from social forces that influence progress and development. In the developing world our experience of under development, colonialism and poverty creates a complex set of challenges to which governments, universities and other institutions must find adequate responses.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2005
- Authors: Pandor, Naledi
- Date: 2005
- Subjects: Academic Freedom -- South Africa Universities and colleges -- South Africa Equality Liberty Education and state -- South Africa Education, Higher -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/729 , vital:19985
- Description: Universities do not exist in vacuum; they are a fundamental part of the development structures of any society in which they exist. History has shown that it is impossible for universities to seek isolation or insulation from social forces that influence progress and development. In the developing world our experience of under development, colonialism and poverty creates a complex set of challenges to which governments, universities and other institutions must find adequate responses.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2005
Language policy, symbolic power and the democratic responsibility of the post-apartheid university
- Authors: Alexander, Neville
- Date: 2001
- Subjects: Academic Freedom -- South Africa Universities and colleges -- South Africa Equality Liberty Education and state -- South Africa Education, Higher -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/696 , vital:19982
- Description: Recent articles by John Higgins (1999) and André du Toit (2000), both of the University of Cape Town and a forthcoming article by Roger Southall and Julian Cobbing have contextualised the discussion of this perennial question in both time and place. Du Toit, in particular, has put the cat among the pigeons by querying the relevance in the era of globalisation and the corporatisation of institutions of higher learning, of the classic liberal interpretation of the T.B. Davie formula deriving from the 1950s, i.e., the freedom of "the university" to decide whom to teach, what to teach, how to teach and who should teach. The gist of his argument is that the danger no longer comes from outside the walls of the university, in the guise of the racist apartheid state, for instance. Instead, the threat comes from inside the institutions themselves as the result of the so-called managerial revolution, which is a manifestation of the shift of power from the collegium academicum to the administrative officials, since the curricular and pedagogical, i.e., academic, freedom of the lecturing and research staff is thereby put at risk. He maintains that the manner in which Higgins and others have addressed the question is anachronistic in that the political terrain and the institutional dynamics in which universities operate in post-apartheid South Africa are light years removed from the apartheid university. At the very least, one-quarter of the composite formula, that which refers to "whom to teach" has been rendered irrelevant, since there is no longer any barrier to access to tertiary education, besides those that operate in any "normal" capitalist democracy.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2001
- Authors: Alexander, Neville
- Date: 2001
- Subjects: Academic Freedom -- South Africa Universities and colleges -- South Africa Equality Liberty Education and state -- South Africa Education, Higher -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/696 , vital:19982
- Description: Recent articles by John Higgins (1999) and André du Toit (2000), both of the University of Cape Town and a forthcoming article by Roger Southall and Julian Cobbing have contextualised the discussion of this perennial question in both time and place. Du Toit, in particular, has put the cat among the pigeons by querying the relevance in the era of globalisation and the corporatisation of institutions of higher learning, of the classic liberal interpretation of the T.B. Davie formula deriving from the 1950s, i.e., the freedom of "the university" to decide whom to teach, what to teach, how to teach and who should teach. The gist of his argument is that the danger no longer comes from outside the walls of the university, in the guise of the racist apartheid state, for instance. Instead, the threat comes from inside the institutions themselves as the result of the so-called managerial revolution, which is a manifestation of the shift of power from the collegium academicum to the administrative officials, since the curricular and pedagogical, i.e., academic, freedom of the lecturing and research staff is thereby put at risk. He maintains that the manner in which Higgins and others have addressed the question is anachronistic in that the political terrain and the institutional dynamics in which universities operate in post-apartheid South Africa are light years removed from the apartheid university. At the very least, one-quarter of the composite formula, that which refers to "whom to teach" has been rendered irrelevant, since there is no longer any barrier to access to tertiary education, besides those that operate in any "normal" capitalist democracy.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2001
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