[Bilimsel Haber] An ESSHC session ‘Academia as an arena of elite formation and democratisation’

[Sule Tarakci]

An ESSHC session ‘Academia as an arena of elite formation and
democratisation’
155858

Call for Papers

An ESSHC session ‘Academia as an arena of elite formation and
democratisation’,

Organised by the Elites network and the Politics, Citizenship, and
Nations network,

The 7th European Social Science History Conference (ESSHC), Lisbon, 27
Feb – 1 Mar 2008
Deadline for proposals: 23 March 2007.

For a session ‘Academia as an arena of elite formation and
democratisation’, I am looking for papers (20 min each) that might
address some aspects of the following themes:

Ever since the late 18th century, the University has had a dual mission.
On the one hand, the University has been intimately linked to the
emergence and functioning of the nation-state, offering various ways to
unify knowledge and power. On the other hand, the University has also
been a locus for critical intelligentsia and socio-political resistance,
aiming at democratisation and/or revolution of the society as a whole.
As examples we could take academic counter-movements as different as the
anti-imperialist Pan-Africans of the late-19th century Liberia, the
global Student Revolt of 1968, and the development of Women’s Studies in
the early 1980’s as a challenge to the collegial fraternity of white
middle-class males.

At the moment, we are faced with a paradox that more people are allowed
access to higher education than ever before, but the most valuable
rewards of higher education are more concentrated as in the past. The
session is thus open for a debate: How the University has acted as an
agent of democratisation, or have claims for “democratisation” mainly
been presented to legitimate a massive subsidy to the middle and
upper-middle classes? To analyse the present situation, a deeper
understanding of its historical backgrounds and a comparison of
different experiences in various parts of the world is essential.

How to propose a paper

If you want to propose a paper, please send your abstract (ca. 200-300
words) to the session organiser, Dr. Marja Jalava
(marja.jalava at helsinki.fi), no later than 23 March 2007.

For further information of these networks and other proposed session
themes, please visit the web pages http://www.iisg.nl/esshc/elites.php
or http://www.iisg.nl/esshc/politics.php

Marja Jalava
Ph.D., Adjunct Professor
Department of History
P.O. Box 4 (Yliopistonkatu 3)
00014 University of Helsinki
Finland

Email: marja.jalava at helsinki.fi
Visit the website at http://www.iisg.nl/esshc/elites.php