The University Unthought: Notes for a Future

Why is it important to have a revolutionary critical pedagogy? What are the new inter/disciplinary engagements possible within the university? What will it be like to live and learn in this university of the future?

Drawing on these essential questions, this volume explores the political future(s) of the university. It does not take a simplistic recourse to the tenets of liberal democracy but seeks a more engaged positioning of the university space within everyday practices of the social. It cross-examines the history of this ‘ideal’ university’s relationship with the banal everyday, the ‘apolitical’ outside and what exceeds intellectual reason, to finally question if such historicizing of the university is necessary at all.

Along with its companion The Idea of the University: Histories and Contexts, this brave new intervention makes a compelling foray into the political future(s) of the university. It will be of interest to academics, educators and students of the social sciences and humanities, especially education. It will also be of use to policy-makers and education analysts, and be central to the concerns of any citizen.

Debaditya Bhattacharya teaches literature at Kazi Nazrul University, India. He has previously taught at Sri Venkateswara College, University of Delhi, India (2010–2012), Central University of South Bihar, India (2013–2015) and Nivedita College, University of Calcutta, India (2015–2018). Debaditya’s doctoral work engaged with the relationship between literature and death, and with specific reference to the testimonial speech-act. He researches on continental philosophy, and writes on contemporary modes of political articulation as well as practices of mobilization in the Indian context. His current interests cohere around a social-economic history of higher education, with specific attention to Indian policy-contexts. He is co-editor of Sentiment, Politics, Censorship: The State of Hurt (2016).