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Threatened Scholarship, Dynamics of Repression and Forms of Resistance

Kerry Bystrom, Aysuda Kölemen (eds)

Kerry Bystrom, Aysuda Kölemen (eds)

Threatened Scholarship, Dynamics of Repression and Forms of Resistance

Towards Academic Freedom as a Transnational Human Right

One of the defining struggles of our time is the accelerating global assault on universities, scholars, and scholarship. Bringing together voices from across many countries and disciplines, this volume traces how far-right and authoritarian politics since the 2010s have transformed higher education into a central battleground. Grounded in lived experience, empirical research, and critical theory, the book explores how repression travels across borders through shared discourses, legal tools, and political tactics, producing a global “threat continuum” that destabilizes older assumptions about where knowledge is safe and where it is at risk. At the same time, it surveys the equally transnational circulation of resistance from threatened scholar support programs and universities in exile to litigation, pedagogy, professional organizing, and public protest. The volume advances the argument that academic freedom must be revitalized not as a narrow professional privilege or a nationally bounded legal norm, but as a transnational human right.
Forthcoming publication. Pre-orders will open a few weeks before publication date.
Editors

Kerry Bystrom

Prof. Dr. Kerry Bystrom teaches English Literature and Human Rights at Bard College Berlin, A Liberal Arts University. Publications include Democracy at Home in South Africa (2016). She also works practically in the field of Higher Education in Emergencies.

Aysuda Kölemen

Dr. Aysuda Kölemen teaches political science at Bard College Berlin. Her current research focuses on the combined threat that autocratization and precarious academic employment pose to academic freedom, both in the Global South and the Global North.
Title
Threatened Scholarship, Dynamics of Repression and Forms of Resistance
Subtitle
Towards Academic Freedom as a Transnational Human Right
Editors
Price
€ 141,00 excl. VAT
ISBN
9789048573882
Format
Hardback
Number of pages
338
Language
English
Publication date
Dimensions
15.6 x 23.4 cm
Series
Academic Freedom and the Democratic University
Categories
Central Asia
Contemporary History
Contemporary Society
Eastern Central Europe
Education & Pedagogy
Europe
Human Rights
International Relations
Legal Studies
Middle East
Policy and Governance Studies
Discipline
Academic - Social Sciences
Imprint
Table of Contents
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Introduction
“From the Transnational Far Right to Academic Freedom as a Transnational Human Right” - Kerry Bystrom, Bard College Berlin & Aysuda Kölemen, Bard College Berlin
Part One: Dynamics of Repression
Chapter One: “A Moveable Carnage: Common Patterns in Attacks on Academic Freedom in Turkey, Hungary, Russia, and the United States” - Aysuda Kölemen, Bard College Berlin
Chapter Two: “Hungarian Academia in Face of Permanent Counter-Revolution: Higher Education Policies and Research Institutions under Viktor Orbán’s System of National Cooperation” - Balázs Trencsényi, Central European University
Chapter Three: “From Stigmatization to Academic Death: Russian Scholars under the ‘Foreign Agent’ Regime” - Dmitry Dubrovskiy, Charles University
Chapter Four: “War is Peace: Staatsräson, Visibility Politics and Palestine at German Universities” - Anna Younes, Independent Scholar & Hanna Al-Taher, Technische Universität, Dresden
Chapter Five: “Censorship and Resistance in the State of Exception” - Ewa Majewska, SWPS University
Testimonials: Case Studies of Repression
“The View from Portland State University: Palestine, Tenure, and Academic Repression in the United States” - Jennifer Ruth, Portland State University
“The Good Germans” - Tirdad Zolghadr, Mathaf Arab Museum of Modern Art
“The Fate of Smolny College in St. Petersburg, Russia: Repressing Academic Freedom in Authoritarian Regimes” - Denis Skopin, Bard College Berlin & Smolny Beyond Borders
Part Two: From Repression to Resistance: Threatened Scholars and Support Programs
Chapter Six: “From Academic Repression in Afghanistan to Scientific Resistance: Exiled Scholars and the Role of Support Programs in Sustaining Academic Freedom” - Sayed Jafar Ahmadi, Bard College & The New School
Chapter Seven: “Exiled Researchers, Shackled Researchers: The Limits of European Hosting Programs” - Pascale Laborier, Paris Nanterre University & Pinar Selek, Côte d’Azur University
Chapter Eight: “‘Universities in Exile’ as Forms of Resistance, Solidarity and Hope” - Kerry Bystrom, Bard College Berlin
Testimonials: Case Studies of Resistance
“Activism in Academia: Reflections on Teaching Human Rights Advocacy with Scholars at Risk” - Edzia Carvalho, University of Dundee
\“Faculty First Responders: Mutual Aid in Support of Faculty Facing Targeted Harassment” - Isaac Kamola, Trinity College
“Roaring Silence? Memories of a Resistance” - Laszlo Upor, Freeszfe Society
Part Three: Widening Resistance
Chapter Nine: “Legal Battles and Academic Repression: The Cases of Turkey’s Academics for Peace and the Bo.aziçi Resistance” - Gülçin Balamir Co.kun, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin
Chapter Ten: “Oscillating Between Knowledge and Struggle: Urban Scholarship and Resistance in Istanbul” - Tuba .nal Çekiç, Technische Universität Darmstadt & Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Chapter Eleven: “Towards a Pedagogy of Vulnerability: Confronting the Political Crisis in U.S. Higher Education” - Jessica K. Young, Santa Clara University
Chapter Twelve: “Beyond Aspiration: Rethinking Transnational Academic Freedom as Global Public Good” - Homa Hoodfar, Concordia University
Afterword - Aysuda Kölemen, Bard College Berlin & Kerry Bystrom, Bard College Berlin
Acknowledgments
About the Contributors
Index

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