Why a Delayed Devaluation Won’t Help Solve the Forex Crisis

Is writing in Spanish, French, English, Arabic, Chinese or Japanese the sign of a colonized mind? Is reading in one of these languages ​​a sign of an infection of colonialism? Directing Oedipus Rex in English by a Sri Lankan professor, in a Ghanaian university, is this the sign of overwhelming colonization? Was Ludowyk, when he realized Androcles the Lion at the University of Colombo, trying to colonize young minds? Is listening to Schubert or Stravinsky the act of a colonized mind? Is writing in Pali for Sinhalese audiences in the 21st century an antidote to colonized minds? What is a colonized university and what is a decolonized university? What does decolonized education and pedagogy include? We are grateful to Professor Andi Schubert for allowing even a man outside academia to raise these questions. Often, the writing on these subjects is so dense and bewildering that one only dares to touch it with an extra-long barge pole.

I am still baffled by the use of the terms “pluriversity” and “subversity” attributed to Boaventura (is it missing?) by Sousa Santos (whom I have not read) in the last Wednesday The Island. The term university, which we use, is of medieval Latin origin. When the pope issued a Taurus Addressing “universitas vestra”, he addressed the collective of students and teachers to whom he delivered a charter establishing a universitas generale, the ancestor of modern universities. The pope created an educational institution with its own privileges and rights and there are still echoes of this autonomy in the management of universities. The university, in its structure, is still a medieval institution. There are rectors, vice-chancellors, faculties, departments, professors and lecturers as there were in Bologna, Montpellier, Oxford or Wittenberg. American universities have a system of administration headed by a president, but a provost, deans, faculties, departments, and professors perform the duties of a university, whatever. Derek Bok, a prominent president of Harvard, used the term multiversity to recognize the multiplicity of functions performed by universities in the United States unlike common practice in Europe. The term has not been used for nearly half a century. Universities, whether in Nsukka, Montevideo, Yokohama, Wollongong or Walla Walla, have been able to adapt to changes in university life throughout the world and over the centuries. It is now over 1,000 years since the first universitas generale was founded. The universities were able to accommodate in their structure the incredible expansion of knowledge from the quadrium to natural and moral philosophy. For someone who mastered a discipline in the humanities 30 years ago, it is now impossible to walk into a classroom with confidence. It is not simply that what was taught changed dramatically over these years, but that the methods of learning, research and teaching underwent changes. Yet the university has not changed.

So why pluriversity and subversity? For effect? Stupid, isn’t it? By all means, commit to “challenging the continued functioning of capitalism and colonialism in pedagogy and intellectual production” and succeed. But forgetting the origin of the term university is not a promising way to achieve this. Karl Marx challenged the whole cabotage of the superstructure of knowledge in capitalist societies to great effect. Universities teach and research on the lines he showed us over 150 years ago. This is the case of the great work of Michel Foucault; he worked in one of the oldest universities in the world. We also find that societies which claim to be communist have universities whose structure is no different from those of capitalist societies. It may be written in Cyrillic but the structure of a university in Moscow is no different from that of Charles X in Prague. In Hanyu, it is Beijing da xue or Tsinghua da xue, but in structure they are no different from Northwestern University in Chicago.

What’s in a name? If you want to reverse the “continuing function of capitalism and colonialism in pedagogy and intellectual production,” go ahead and do it. If it happens soon enough, I’ll enjoy the fun.

old fog