“University under Erasure”, “Be like Water”, “Laugh like a Medusa” and other such moorings. (Part 1.)
This a series of quick bites from my experience of the CUS conference and learnings from it. This piece is part 1 of my reporting back. More pieces to come. Conference Booklet with abstracts can be found here.
Context Matters: A Critical Universities Studies Conference set in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong is nothing and everything I imagined it to be. I imagined protests, lots of police, censorship, restrictions, possibly lots of American influence, and warm weather. It was all those things..but it had a lot more spirit than I thought. There’s a certain tension always in the air. The tension perhaps felt even more real to me owing to the closeness of the conference to HKSAR 27th year anniversary celebration .
After having spent the first day of my trip trying to sus out the place and context in which the conference was taking place in, I honestly didn’t know what to think of it. My main question going into this conference—-What is the “critical” part of “critical university studies”? There are all these people from all around the globe, what do they think of it? Perhaps you might see, like some of us at the conference in- there were sort of two different understandings of the word “critical”. Critical as in critique… but also critical also as in to criticise.
Setting the scene: University Under Erasure by Dr Eva Bendix Petersen
Day 1 of the conference. I feel quite giddy and special being an audience to some of the best higher education researchers in the sector. The opening is delivered in an unusual kind of lecture theatre- one where the theatre is horizontal with only for or five rows vertically. Interesting choice. Apparently, this decision was deliberate.
So, why Critical University Studies?
Eva, a dutch higher education researcher, invites us to see the university as one under erasure. Under Erasure in the literal sense, is a word on a page that is stricken through, as though deleted by the editor. However, having found no other word to replace it, it still stands on the page. The University, in all its glory and flaws, needs to be studied more than ever…. and done so critically. The study of the university is our duty of care. A study invites us to be transdisciplinary. This particular conference, formerly known as the Academic Identities Conference, recognised that need. Hence the broadening of the scope, the name change and the invitation to be critical and build on top of the university we have.
Opening Keynote “Be like water”- Bruce Lee.
The keynote on day 1 opens with insight into one Hong Kong universities’ current conditions for academics. Apparently, Hong Kong and China pumps out PHDs in the hundred-thousands. They point fingers at the neoliberal university, criticise the amount of labour in terms of publishing that needs to go in for academics to feel remotely confident to keep their jobs (btw, its a lot), and the struggle that is to keep their love for genuine research. Any attempt to self-care co-journeys with their burden to constantly sustain impact, implement, evaluate build, explore and engage.
At such time they draw inspirations from their gods- Bruce Lee. His famous saying - “Be like water, my friend. Be like Water”, soothes them. I loved the call to adapt, change course, be forceful enough to disrupt, and at other times gentle to make your course around things. I love more that Bruce Lee has made his way into academia—inviting us to navigate through an oasis rather a hostile environment.
I don’t understand the neoliberal university. Fortunately, that hasn’t been my experience of the university. Is it everyone’s experience? My fellow conference attendee and higher education stalwart Barbara Grant words over tea was a little more reasurring. "The university is a thousand tiny universities.”
I like her version better. I scratch my head about the neoliberal part, but the opening keynote’s message “Be like water”comes home with me. I 🫰Bruce Lee.
