Rise of the Digitized Public Intellectual: Death of the Professor in the Network Neutral Internet Age

The centralised discourse claiming ownership of ‘knowledge’ and ‘higher education’ seems to be declining as the decentralising discourse extolling open source software and informal social network communication are emerging: yet the two are complementary when higher education is seen as a commodity. Thus, in the internet age of the twenty first century there is no consistent narrative to identify what a ‘higher education’ consists of. J. F. Lyotard famously predicted in The Post Modern Condition that the commercialised computer age would ‘sound the knell’ of the professor. Lyotard understood that in order to begin to philosophise about higher education in an era of computerisation, the gatekeeper of knowledge role traditionally attributed to professors through a university title must first be rendered illegitimate. Lyotard did not envision, however, what a higher education might look like within the network neutral internet space, where the difference between ‘higher’ and ‘public’ education can be reduced through open accessibility to, and shared construction of, knowledge. Embracing a Socratic model of public discourse that openly challenges an epistemology of consensus, network neutrality has the potential to redefine the role of professors as fiduciaries of education across society, even globally. The resulting academic equality between professors and the public recreates the university as a boundless meeting space for public dialogue, and the professor as a digitized public intellectual

Beyond the university : higher education institutions across time and space

This chapter makes the case for a history of higher education institutions which looks beyond the university. Building on recent historiographical developments, it argues that the history of higher education must not be limited to the history of the university, an institution fixed in space and time, but must rather adopt a transnational and transhistorical approach. It also argues for a broader definition of “institution” which includes concepts, ideas, and practices which have become “institutionalized” alongside traditional understandings of institutions as sites with fixed locations and physical forms. Beginning with an exploration of higher education and learning across the globe in the ancient world, it goes on to study significant developments in higher education during the medieval, Renaissance, Enlightenment, and modern periods. While considerable attention is paid to the development of the university in Europe and around the world, the role and significance of other higher education institutions are stressed throughout. Particular weight is placed on the importance of learned societies and academies as sites of research development and training in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The chapter concludes with reflections on the ways in which the prominence of the research university since the Second World War has shaped the writing of the history of higher education in recent years, most notably, the dominant position given to the university as institution. Potentially fruitful directions for future research are also discussed, in particular, the need to focus on alternative higher education institutions

Fotografia M17

Tratto da "Rivista delle colonie italiane" - Anno VI - 1932 - n.1