Abstract
This chapter explores the role of the modern university, focusing on the usually neglected areas of the arts and humanities, both as hubs of creativity and innovation and as crucial platforms for questioning societal norms and rules. The point of departure is Zygmunt Bauman’s notion of the university as a public space which promotes the culture of human rights and social justice against the moral blindness of utilitarian sciences. How is the contemporary university, under increasing market demands and pressure from the ‘culture of management’ maintaining this ethos? What does it mean to be a critically engaged university in the era of performance benchmarks and league tables, as universities increasingly opt for a pragmatic curricular approach to meet the expectations of big corporate employers? To what extent are innovative transdisciplinary courses and programmes, focusing on learning-as-process, rather than product, able to act as platforms for critical thinking and debate? How do these learning processes become modes of ‘remixing’ culture and knowledge through performances, public actions, workshops, conferences and seminars to activate different social agents?
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Notes
- 1.
In Serbia, as in many European countries, desertion is considered a criminal act. Thus, ex-Yugoslavian military deserters have not been welcomed. ‘Praising deserters’ was a subversive notion, and even peace movements have not openly broached this subject. The Council of Europe has held numerous debates on this issue. None of the states from the region wanted to support the approval of deserters, and their act was silenced in the collective memory, although at that time and in the context of the downfall of Yugoslavia, refusing to participate in war was an act of dissidence and pacifism, and, also, of political courage.
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Dragićević Šešić, M., Jestrovic, S. (2017). The University as a Public and Autonomous Sphere: Between Enlightenment Ideas and Market Demands. In: Bala, S., Gluhovic, M., Korsberg, H., Röttger, K. (eds) International Performance Research Pedagogies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53943-0_5
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