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donate Bologna's blind alley
editorial The uni's burning! The slogan was everywhere in the German-speaking space last winter, as the protests at the University of Vienna set off a wave of similar strikes, first at Austrian universities, then beyond: in Frankfurt, Heidelberg, Marburg, Zürich... 2009/10 saw further protests at universities in Athens, Zagreb, Marseilles and London. The Bologna Process, one of the main points of contention, also marked its ten-year anniversary on 12 March this year by officially inaugurating the European Higher Education Area. Eurozine surveys a debate enflaming (not only) Europe. [ more ]
Protests
The uni's burning via Internet
Web 2.0 Refuting derogatory references to a "Facebook rebellion" and tackling the charge that virtual "being there" undermines participation, Jana Herwig, Max Kossatz and Viola Mark examine what the student protests reveal about political activism in the era of Web 2.0. [ more ]
Painting the glass house black
resistance Faced with outrageous tuition-fee hikes resulting from the financialization of universities, California's students are agitating for the first time in years. But is there more to these mobilizations than the limited fight for a decent and "affordable" education? [ more ]
The rocky waters of research
alternatives As crucial locations for the production of wealth, universities are also the natural site for the development of alternatives. One such is to publish under group pseudonyms, sidestepping the competitive evaluation of researchers by the number of papers they publish. [ more ]
The Bologna reforms
European university reform
Ten propositions in search of an answer
Myths What in the US has been a tradition of collaboration between universities and prosperous private business, in Europe risks turning into an acceptance of the dictates of the economy. On the "entrepreneurial university" and other myths of Bologna. [ more ]
The Bologna paradox
On the contradictions in the implementation of the Bologna Criteria
Exclusion The Bologna Process is typical of a new dynamic of inclusion and exclusion in post-national Europe. Not only must the assumption be challenged that access to knowledge can be controlled via monetization, the reforms must also be placed in the context of Europe's selective border regime. [ more ]
National debates
Bologna, or The capitalization of education
Germany The German protests against the Bologna Process are the last opposition to what amounts to a cultural revolution, writes Richard Münch. The result of the exposure of German universities to purely economic demands will be an increasing hierarchization of educational institutions. [Spanish version added] [ more ]
The concretion of social relations
The Bologna reforms in Austria
Austria Just as Austria's entry into the common market consolidated the neoliberal transformation of society, so its implementation of the Bologna Declaration cedes national control to the supra-national level. In both cases, the result is the same: inequality and lack of democratic accountability. [ more ]
Romania: Bologna versus entrenched interests
Romania Critique of Bologna in Romania is a pretext for academic complacency and professional self-preservation, writes Corneliu Balan. The problem is not the Bologna system as such but the subordination of education to political interests and the privatization of the universities. [ more ]
How Russian universities became the future of world education
Russia Today, a new struggle for control of Russia's universities is underway between a "black", private model and a centralized and seemingly more transparent state model. Yet the two are but different expressions of the same thing, writes Alexander Bikbov: spontaneous capitalist neoconservatism. [ more ]
Lithuania: Universities on the threshold
Lithuania A blind drive towards utility characterizes higher education policy in Lithuania. The only remedy on offer for the ongoing brain-drain is based on the logic of the market. Lithuanian universities are steadily going the way of the rest of "common property" after independence. [ more ]
French universities: Outlook and resistance
An interview with Yves Lichtenberger
France Opposition to the decentralization of the French university system culminated in protests by teaching staff in March 2009. Justified resentment at the top-down nature of the reforms combined with a resistance to change, argues Yves Lichtenberger. [ more ]
From identity crisis to full-blown conflict
The opposition to reforms at French universities
France What began as a row over the French government plans for the revision of the status of researchers escalated in March 2009 into a prolonged and explosive dispute over Nicolas Sarkozy's attempt to overhaul France's poorly-funded public universities, writes Françoise Benhamou. [ more ]
Elitism, philistinism and populism
The sorry tale of British higher education policy
UK With government pressure increasing to make employability the sole goal of higher education in all but the elite institutions, universities in the UK will soon be providing no more than tertiary training for the service, retail and media industries, writes Jeremy Gilbert. [ more ]
The select few
Admissions systems at US elite universities
US Nowhere is the notion of the "achieving society" more firmly anchored than in the US: Obama, a graduate of Yale, is the latest exemplar of upward mobility. Yet the nepotism at work in the admissions systems of elite US universities gives the lie to the rhetoric of meritocracy. [ more ]
philosophies of education
Knowledge is not a shovel
Universities and democratic society
Multilingualism The primary aim of education is to nurture the ability to reflect, to develop new ideas, and to implement these collectively. Cognitive "multilingualism" is the only way to prevent the specialization of knowledge narrowing our horizons to an extent that results in structural irresponsibility. [ more ]
The university in the twenty-first century
Towards a democratic and emancipatory university reform
Pluriversity Universities can regain their legitimacy only through radical democratic restructuring. Countering the brain-drain – so far the main result of the transnationalization of education – will only be possible by embarking on a counter-hegemonic process of educational globalization. [ more ]
Axiomatic equality
Rancière and the politics of contemporary education
Equality Jacques Rancière's "utopian rationalism" invokes the possibility of a de-institutionalized autodidacticism that predicates all learning on the basis of the will of those desiring to learn. However it may be that the modern university is antithetical to establishing true equality. [ more ]
The return to elitism in education
Inequality A society's attitudes to innate intelligence are closely correlated with its levels of inequality, writes Danny Dorling. In Britain, the backlash against comprehensive education has created a market-based system in which schools and universities compete for money and students. [ more ]
The structure and silence of the cognitariat
Cognitariat Only a small "creative class" achieves the freedom stereotypically attributed to knowledge workers, writes Christopher Newfield. Increasingly, recipients of higher education are prepared for working life in a knowledge economy where independence has been eroded. [ more ]
The metaseminar
Theses on education and the experience of critical thought
the political The Bologna reforms embody a narrowly utilitarian turn in higher education policy and are more a cause for concern than for celebration. A critique of the pragmatic reduction of knowledge and plea for the university as "locus of the unconditionally political". [ more ]
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Media landscapes: Central and eastern Europe
Those in central and eastern Europe who, after 1989, saw the media as the handmaiden of democracy and the conventional watchdog on power, today have become targets for new and subtler forms of censorship. How media autonomy in Europe's newer democracies is being inhibited by market forces and continuing political intervention. [ more ]
The malady of infinite aspiration?
Sound in principle or sick at heart? Articles on the financial crisis, compiled under Durkheim's memorable phrase. Including: Jacques Rupnik, Ralf Dahrendorf, Daniel Daianu, Mircea Vasilescu, Heiner Flassbeck, Olivier Mongin. [ more ]
Olympic indifference
The Beijing Olympics 2008 are unusual insofar as not one country has boycotted them. This, despite the fact that the political dimension of the Games has seldom been more controversial. Are we seeing a new kind of "Olympic indifference"? With this in mind, Eurozine compiles articles on sport, politics, and protest. [ more ]
Shared space, divided society
Migration is part of modern society, meaning more and more people of different ethnic, religious, and cultural backgrounds live together in Europe. The multitude of perspectives and experiences represents an enormous resource, but as cultural conflicts inherent in today's urban societies become visible, doubts are also raised about the value of diversity. [ more ]
1968: Beyond soixante-huite
Forty years on, the differences between the 1968 uprisings in western and eastern Europe move into ever sharper focus. "In retrospect, the great event of '68 in Europe was not Paris, but Prague. But we were unable to see this at the time." Including articles on '68 in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, France and West Germany. [ more ]
Illiberal Europe?
Parliament or the soapbox? Populist politics are enjoying renewed success in Europe, above all in the former socialist countries. Ivan Krastev, G.M.Tamás, Ralf Dahrendorf, Jacques Rupnik and others investigate the rise of "democratic illiberalism". [ more ]
Cultural citizenship
The concept of cultural citizenship responds to the multicultural context of contemporary societies, in which the concern with equality is increasingly being complemented with a concern with difference. Contributors include Gerard Delanty, Axel Honneth, Rainer Bauböck, Ivaylo Ditchev, Charles Taylor, Rada Ivekovic, António Sousa Ribeiro. [ more ]
Decentring Europe
Any reinvention of the concept of Europe that takes into account the complexities inherent in Europe's place in a globalized world must contain a critique of Eurocentrism. Learning from the South, i.e. absorbing the full critical impact of alternative approaches may be a key element in the rethinking – and unthinking – of "Europe".[ more ]
The future of war
Are wars that are fought between nations a thing of the past, and are the future challenges more a case of ethnic strife, break-up of failed states, secession and civil wars? In a special focal point, Eurozine analyzes the changing face of warfare in the twenty-first century, in which terrorism and new security threats have profoundly transformed the way wars are conducted. [ more ]
The city as stage for social upheaval
From the western European city to the Third World megacity, one is able to observe how a single principle asserts itself in the social structure of the urban space. That principle – privatization – is geared towards the concentration of wealth and assets on an increasingly global scale, a manoeuvre its beneficiaries seek to naturalize. [ more ]
Big Brother goes global
Post 9/11, governments are increasingly tailoring "international standards" to ratify domestic policies that intrude on civil liberties. Welcome to the phenomenon of "policy laundering". [ more ]
Changing Europe
As political Europe turns 50, the questions about its future are as open as ever. A special focus featuring some of Eurozine's most outstanding contributions on the European project: From analyses of the current crisis to a hilarious parody of Brussels' literary ambitions. [ more ]
Post-secular Europe?
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Europe talks to Europe: Towards a European public sphere?
The European integration project has made the discussion about transnational spaces for cultural and political debate acute. Can there at all be a common Europe without a pan-European public sphere? [ more ]
Politics of border making and (cross-)border identities
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Documenta 12 magazines
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Freedom of speech and the Danish cartoon controversy
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Politics of translation
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Conferences
European histories
The 22nd European Meeting of Cultural Journals
Vilnius, 8-11 May 2009
Under the heading "European Histories", the 22nd European Meeting of Cultural Journals explored the role of history and memory in forming new identities in a Europe in change. [ more ]
crosswords X mots croisés
21st European Meeting of Cultural Journals
Paris, 26-29 September 2008
The 21st European Meeting of Cultural Journals 2008 in Paris explored the theme of multilingualism in Europe in terms of language policies, migration, translation and the European public sphere. Read the conference texts here. [ more ]
Changing places (What's normal anyway?)
The 20th European Meeting of Cultural Journals
Sibiu, 21-24 October 2007
Under the heading "Changing places (What's normal anyway?)", the Eurozine network conference 2007 in Sibiu, Romania, addressed the challenges facing societies, literature, and the media as the need for change meets the urge for normality. Read the conference texts here. [ more ]
Friend and foe. Shared space, divided society
The 19th European Meeting of Cultural Journals
London, 27-30 October 2006
Speakers at the 19th European Meeting of Cultural Journals opened up the discussion on cultural diversity in two directions: first, as it is experienced in the physical urban space, and second, as it is reflected in the mirror of the media. [ more ]
Neighbourhoods
The 18th European Meeting of Cultural Journals
Istanbul, 4-7 November 2005
Contributions on the notion of neighbourhood and the Turkey-Europe question from a range of intellectual and geographic perspectives. [ more ]
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