Discussions about the role of universities have long been framed in terms of questions of what is good for the public, as well as how and whether higher education serves that good. Today, the language of 'societal impact' has become an accepted way for policymakers to frame the matter, but just who is included in the underlying definition of…

Existing scholarship tends to understand university governance structurally (emphasizing formal authority and resource environments), culturally (focusing on history, norms, and leadership), or by combining both approaches (Kezar & Eckel, 2004). These models understand governance in instrumental terms, as the means for steering the university.…

Higher Education (HE) constitutes a space that calls urgently for new understandings in the contemporary political moment. One way of establishing such an understanding of HE is to consider more fully the work of political theorists in relation to questions of power in the modern nation-state, particularly as these impinge upon the key problem of…

When the newly appointed professor of medicine at the University of Rinteln, Johann Peter Lotichius (1598-1669), delivered an oration entitled "Oratio super fatalibus hoc tempore academiarum in Germania periculis" ("Oration on the pernicious dangers to the universities of contemporary Germany") at said university in February…

This project is a study of the role interpretation has played during a few key moments in a culture war over the role of the university in society. It argues that in these key moments in which a political reflection has been undertaken regarding the way knowledge is produced and distributed, the nature and function of interpretation as such has…

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) supports processes of change in complex socio-ecological systems. Where and how this change takes place are important considerations as we seek to enhance our capacity to challenge existing systems and thus produce and reproduce our life activities in more sustainable ways. This paper considers the…

This essay offers a new interpretation of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's landmark work of critical social theory "Empire." It develops an account of the politics of exile by situating this political strategy in terms of Hardt and Negri's claim that it is no longer feasible to confront capitalist power head-on. It attends closely to…

This paper delineates the rise, fall and re-emergence of "tongshi" education in Chinese higher education history, and in doing so hopes to reveal the underlying forces behind the two waves of "tongshi" education and capture their important 'Chinese' characteristics. Based on a comparative-historical examination of the Chinese…

In "Taking Care of Youth and the Generations", Bernard Stiegler develops an account of the pedagogical responsibilities which follow from rhythmic intergenerational flows, involving the creation of milieus which care for and pay attention to the future, toward the creation of nootechnical milieus. Such milieus are defined by their…

The first half of this paper provides a historical overview of: (a) J. V. Snellman's philosophy of "sivistys"; and (b) its legacy on public policy in Finland. The second half discusses the findings of a qualitative study exploring contemporary understandings of the public good among Finnish policymakers and university staff. The dataset…

How and why did Russian education go from the enthusiastic liberalization in the early 1990s to the restoration of a Soviet-style system in the new century? Attempting to answer this question, the authors reassess and advance a theoretical model that they initially proposed fifteen years ago. While most research on education in transitional…

Drawing on theoretical discussions on identity construction, the article studies the interrelation between academic mobility and the creation of a common (supranational) identity in the post-Soviet space, which is fragmented by cooperation projects and state-level educational policies. Based on the concept of educational regionalism, the article…

This paper challenges the apparatus of knowledge in the reproduction of the nationalist narrative of historical trauma that leads to the making of exclusive nationalism and unequal citizenship, particularly in East and Southeast Asia. I take the case of the 1965-66 genocide in Indonesia as an example to illustrate how the cultural trauma that took…

This article presents a critical analysis of moral judgment in history education using the case of Cecil Rhodes as an example. For this purpose, I first examine the arguments for and against passing judgment on past actions given by historians, historical philosophers, and history education researchers. Second, I take a close look at the ways…

Purpose: This study provides a new look at the late 19th-century university issue in Spain. Loss of self-government among universities and the state's centralization brought a conflict between science and religion to the fore in the process of the secularization of knowledge. Design/methodology/approach: We first delve into the anti-Darwinian…