Work­shop: Anti-Intel­lec­tu­al­ism, Attacks on Aca­d­e­m­ic Free­dom and Illib­er­al Neoliberalism

Work­shop with Éric Fassin (Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis)

This inter­dis­ci­pli­nary work­shop will address the rise of neolib­er­al illib­er­al pol­i­tics and their con­nec­tion to anti-intel­lec­tu­al­ism and dis­cours­es around aca­d­e­m­ic free­dom. Based on the guest lec­ture, we will dis­cuss a vari­ety of cas­es, rang­ing from the US-Amer­i­can moral pan­ic around ‘Crit­i­cal Race The­o­ry’, Bolsonaro’s inten­tion­al attacks on Uni­ver­si­ty fund­ing, dis­cours­es around ‘islamo-left­ism’ and ‘wok­ism’ in France to the ban of Gen­der Stud­ies in Hun­gary. What do those cas­es and the grow­ing hos­til­i­ty against researchers tell us about the glob­al state of democ­ra­cy? How and why are aca­d­e­mics and their modes of knowl­edge pro­duc­tion tar­get­ed not only by far-right actors but increas­ing­ly also by the state?

The work­shop is open for stu­dents, PhD can­di­dates and Post-Doc researchers from all disciplines.

In prepa­ra­tion of the work­shop, par­tic­i­pants are asked to read the fol­low­ing chap­ters from Eric Fassin’s (2024) book State Anti-Intel­lec­tu­al­ism & the Pol­i­tics of Gen­der and Race (avail­able via SUUB):

Intro­duc­tion: Anti-Intel­lec­tu­al­ism and the Pol­i­tics of Truth (pp. 1–23)
Con­clu­sion: Democ­ra­cy and the Inter­sec­tion­al Pol­i­tics of Mourn­ing (pp. 149–160)
Epi­logue: In the First Per­son (pp. 161–172)

Reg­is­tra­tion for the work­shop via mail is pos­si­ble until May 30 (hstein­hauer [at] uni-bre­men [dot] de)