5 March - Who is destroying the university?
The Common Seminar - 16.03.2010 10:02
*Who is destroying the university?*
Galerie Schijnheilg, Passeerdersgracht 23, Amsterdam
25 March 2010 - 8pm
Conversation and presentation of the book
TOWARD A GLOBAL AUTONOMOUS UNIVERSITY
Cognitive Labor, The Production of Knowledge and Exodus from the
Education Factory (New York: Autonomedia, 2009) edited by the
Edu-factory collective.
Edu-Factory is a transnational collective engaged with the
transformations of the global university and conflicts in knowledge
production. The website of the global network www.edu-factory.org
connects investigations and reports from university struggles.
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Jos Scheren will interview:
- Amit Basole, University of Massachussets, Vidya Ashram Varanasi
- Aetzel Griffioen, Erasmus Universiteit Utrecht, Economics on the Border
- Wessel de Boer, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Universitaire Activisten
- Kyra Weaver, Universiteit Utrecht, Kritische Studenten Utrecht
Many voices have risen to defend the integrity of the University from
the recent interventions of the European governments. They say that
universities are threatened by public expenditures cuttings, the
privatization of education and the commoditization of knowledge. The
implementation of the 'Bologna Process' is taken as one of the most
dangerous threats to the university as we are used to know it.
But should the university 'as we are used to know it' become the object
of a rescue operation?
The time has come to question the very concept of University, as the
factory of universally valid and authoritative knowledge. It is clear
that the university, which is said to be at risk in Europe, has being an
instrument of destruction rather than of production of knowledge in
Asia, Africa and the Americas.
This university is about to be destroyed. The only question is: who will
destroy this university? Those academic managers who under the disguise
of ‘necessary cuts’ and ‘efficiency targets’ are basically enlarging
their own profitable/parasitical positions? Or those who are seeking to
construct common knowledge: those capable of inventing different ways of
learning, using different languages, inside and outside the academia?
The old university as an ivory tower is about to disappear. Will it all
end in an ecological disaster where no knowledge can ever be developed
or will it be something different that we do not yet fully know but that
for sure has to be constructed in common?
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The Common Seminar
 http://lists.factoryofthecommon.org/
Alter/native amsterdam
www.alternativeamsterdam.org
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