What Was the University?

Catalog description

What was the university when it was first created in the Middle Ages, before it assumes the form known to us today? In what ways are universities distinguished from other knowledge institutions, such as academies and schools? Can the university be considered a political institution? And if so, to what degree is it comparable to other political entities, including parties, courts, churches, and even states? In this course, we explore these questions by revisiting the key texts and documents that give shape to the institution that many of us call an intellectual home. By tracing the evolving idea of the university in the history of political thought, from medieval Europe to twentieth-century America, we seek to understand how the lively debates regarding the idea of the university emblematize the ongoing contestations between knowledge and power, culture and politics, nationalism and cosmopolitanism dividing thinkers across the political spectrum. Main themes to be explored include the birth of academic disciplines, education and religion, the eternal rivalries between universities and the polities that shape them and the vexed relationship between educators and the age they live in. By the end of the course, students should be able to achieve the following: Articulate the competing accounts of the idea of the university in the history of political thought; Write and reproduce orally the implications of the idea of the university for broader themes in political theory, including sovereignty, knowledge economy, education, and human flourishing; Evaluate and analyze critically the legacies of earlier university ideals for contemporary higher education; Think and write creatively and beyond ideological terms about the ways in which the university can be considered a political institution