Abstract
The text, written in spring, 1992, describes certain effects of the German unification process on what has been called the unification of two different scholarly systems. This essay examines how, in the humanities, the hasty political drive to "depoliticize" the scholarly institutions of the former German Democratic Republic and "normalize" them according to Western standards, led to frictions and clashes that run counter to "normalization" as well as to the supposed universality of "Western standards".
Highlights
D'abord, précisons que le texte en anglais est dû au fait que Bill a mis les pieds dans les plats
Je me permets de soumettre à l'attention des lecteurs de Surfaces certains passages du projet de Bill dans lesquels il situait la crise internationale de l'université en rapport avec la situation particulière de l'Allemagne: How, is the University to be understood once the story of liberal education has lost its organizing center: the idea of culture as the object of the human sciences, both their origin and their telos? The process I have raced suggests that nostalgic appeals to Humboldtian ideals concerning the value of the humanities are likely to have little force in a world of shrinking powers of taxation, where national self-affirmation seems less central to human existence
The aim of my research is to look at the current reorganization of the German University in the light of the historical tradition that I have sketched in order to understand what is at stake in the institutionalisation of knowledge at the end of the twentieth century and to suggest ways in which the human sciences can continue to play a vital role in the structure of the University, even after the notion of national culture has ceased to serve as the guiding principle of the institution. (...)The particular situation of Germany is of special interest in that it is undergoing, simultaneously, both an internal and an external integration
Summary
Écrit au printemps 1992, décrit certains effets de l’unification de l’Allemagne laquelle peut être appelée unification de deux systèmes de pensée différents. Dans les sciences humaines, la haine de la politique mène à une « dépolitisation » des institutions savantes de la République Démocratique d’Allemagne : elle les « normalise » en les accordant aux standards de l’Ouest, tout en les menant vers des frictions et des conflits qui vont à l’encontre de la « normalisation », supposée universelle, des « standards de l’Ouest »
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