‘Counter to advance? Observations on the traditions, trajectories & openings of the re-emerging field of ‘critical university studies’ – talk by Dina Zoe Belluigi for Liverpool Hope University

Below is a recording of the talk Counter to advance? Observations on the traditions, trajectories & openings of the re-emerging field of ‘critical university studies’ which I offered online on the 18 March 2020 at Liverpool Hope University.

Abstract:
Against a backdrop of increasing strife, dis-ease and uncertainty expressed by students and academics within higher education in many places across the globe, Critical University Studies (or Critical Higher Education Studies) has seen a re-emergence. This talk presents a number of reflections in an attempt to productively question our engagement with this ‘field’ within the academy – clues of which are embedded within the discord suggested in the title. ‘Advance’ is a sense of the agency of those of us within, to shape the field and be shaped by it, and the currents and imaginaries to which such movement relates. ‘Counter’ relates to resistance, to a concern with whom and what is counted as important in and for this area of enquiry, and whom or what can effectively counter the dominant and the oppressive within and about higher education. It relates to the geo/politics of this field, and its internal processes of de/ legitimation as it becomes disciplined into a discipline. Against this to-and-fro discord of countering to advance, are ‘observations’ to situate this talk within the speakers’ particular perspective, concerns and positionality about possible traditions, trajectories and openings of this area of enquiry and its possible ways of operating.

It was shifted to a fully online engagement due to travel and other restrictions in response to the coronovirus. As such, I have uploaded it to share with you.

The talk is 32 minutes long and asks the viewer to link to one specific video related to the Counter // Narratives project. For that link go to this site:https://counternarrativefilm.wixsite.com/counter/the-bell

The discussion also related to A Higher Education Studies Arts Archive. See that here https://padlet.com/d_belluigi/h0gt6acbb0v1

Thanks to my Frank Su for his interaction about this talk.