070135 PS Proseminar - (Re)Thinking the University. Approaches from (Post-)Socialist Europe (2023W)

The course will be taught by Dr. Elisa Satjukow (Univ. Leipzig) and Dr. Friedrich Cain (Univ. Vienna).

The course focuses on the history of universities in (post-)socialist Europe. We plan to critically assess the concept and practice of “the university” in socialist and post-socialist scientific systems of Central, Eastern, and Southeast Europe (CESEE). The analytical framework will be based on decolonial and feminist perspectives on academic knowledge production, helping to expand the historical epistemology of the university in 20th and 21st-century Europe.

Case studies will cover a wide range of examples and may be selected based on the students’ interest. The possible contexts are vast: Following the October Revolution of 1917, the Russian academic system was restructured in the newly established Soviet Union. After 1945, universities in the new socialist states had to comply with the principles of Soviet hegemony. Applied research was perceived as the pinnacle of academic knowledge production in the socialist societies of Europe. Universities were conceived of as efficient and highly exclusive places. They were supposed to serve the progress of socialism, especially since science was declared a “productive force” during the 1960s. At the same time, there was the ambition to design egalitarian and hence more diverse knowledge spaces — at least at the intersection of gender and class. In practice, however, universities often continued to perpetuate social inequalities — not only inside the institutions themselves, but also within the asymmetrical power relations of imperial structures.

Apart from reproducing political order, universities were also platforms for counter thought. They were home to reform movements (such as the Praxis School in Zagreb/Belgrade) and hubs for emerging transnational (academic) feminist networks, in and beyond former Yugoslavia, for example. Such semi-secret parallel academic structures developed especially where university politics were particularly restrictive and reactionary. These initiatives were of great significance during the revolutionary upheavals of the 1980s (e.g. the Flying Universities in Poland), and became a decisive oppositional force in many parts of socialist Europe. At the same time, these parallel structures paved the way for the post-1989 academic awakening — away from a limited corpus of politically driven science toward a new freedom of research, at least temporarily.

However, the post-socialist transformation of academia was influenced by the wide-ranging sociopolitical and economic challenges of the 1990s. While strong traditionalist groups prevailed, preserving socialist thought and controlling academic practice, reform movements were forced to adapt their position to new economic and discursive conditions. University employees were confronted with inflation and privatization, many were forced to flee from war and nationalist regimes, some regrouped abroad. At the same time, neo-liberal models were adopted, which fundamentally influenced academic labor markets. The German Democratic Republic (GDR) was a special case in many ways. Here, some academic institutions completely ceased to exist and others were transformed according to West German models, which also resulted in large-scale replacement of former academic staff.