The 36th Bremen University Talks event will kick off at 6 p.m. on Thursday, November 21, 2024 at the Kunsthalle Bremen art gallery. After an introduction on “Academic Freedom Today” by Prof. Dr. Michi Knecht, Prof. Dr. Ingo H. Warnke, and PD Dr. Ehler Voss (all Worlds of Contradiction, University of Bremen), there will be a panel discussion on the topic of “Universities in the Crossfire of Geopolitical Threats” with Prof. Dr. Shalini Randeria (Central European University, Vienna) and Dr. Elisabeth von Thadden (DIE ZEIT, Hamburg).
The welcoming address will be given by Alexander Witte, Chairperson of the Wolfgang Ritter Foundation. The event will be hosted by Prof. Dr. Bernd M. Scherer, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.
Conference
On Friday, November 22, 2024, a closed conference will take place at the Atlantic Grand Hotel Bremen from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Following short presentations by renowned experts, workshops are planned that will be based on an exchange between academia, business, and politics. Together with the guests, the question of how and in what way academic freedom in its various dimensions (regulatory-normative, infrastructural, discursive, economic, political, ecological, practical, etc.) is currently understood as relevant and also threatened and how this affects the relationship between university and non-university communities will be explored.
Focus of the 36th Bremen University Talks
The 36th Bremen University Talks will focus on current practices, threats, and controversies associated with academic freedom. The need for an associated discussion results on the one hand from tendencies towards hostility towards academia, the strengthening of post-factual politics, and the associated tendencies towards strategic intervention in the basic principles of free academic work, and on the other hand from recent developments in the field of digital networking and changing forms of exclusion.
The discussion will address the situation of universities against the backdrop of geopolitical threats as well as the questions of how public academia can and must be, what role, task, and social responsibility academia has, what questions arise from the perspective of the Global South, what possibilities of institutional protection of scholars at risk exist, and what limits academic freedom encounters.
The topic of this University Talks session is in line with the Year of Science on the subject of freedom, which the Federal Ministry of Education and Research has proclaimed for 2024. In 2024, the German Basic Law will be 75 years old and it will be 35 years since the Peaceful Revolution; two anniversaries that offer an opportunity to spend a year looking at freedom in all its facets. This year's Year of Science is dedicated to the value and meaning of freedom and sheds light on it in a wide variety of dimensions: freedom in 2024, freedom of future generations, and freedom in Europe and worldwide.
The Bremen University Talks
The Wolfgang Ritter Foundation and the University of Bremen have been hosting the Bremen University Talks since 1988. The aim of the events is to stimulate a dialog on current issues with society beyond the academic framework. After all, a lively exchange between representatives from academia, politics, and business can give the discussion new impetus and a practical relevance.
Further Information:
https://www.uni-bremen.de/en/bug
https://wolfgang-ritter-stiftung.de (in German only)
https://www.unifreun.de/ (in German only)
www.woc.uni-bremen.de (in German only)
Contact:
Dr. Christina Jung
University of Bremen
UniTransfer – Sponsors and Partners
Phone: +49 421 218-60336
Email: christina.jungprotect me ?!vw.uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de
PD Dr. Ehler Voss
University of Bremen
Worlds of Contradiction (WOC)
Email: ehler.vossprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de
