History of Academic (Un)Freedom in Central and Eastern Europe
Series of lectures will be held in English.
Contents
Academic (un)freedom is a highly topical and contested issue in light of recent developments not only in Central and Eastern Europe but far beyond. Scholars and intellectuals have increasingly been confronted with professional bans, forced emigration, political pressure, and public defamation, while freedom of expression and opinion has come under growing strain.
This lecture series explores the phenomenon of academic (un)freedom from a historical perspective, spanning the period from the eighteenth century to the present day. By examining a wide range of media and forms—including legal frameworks, institutional practices, educational systems, publications, and teaching—the series aims to illuminate how academic freedoms have been negotiated, restricted, defended, and transformed over time, and how these dynamics continue to shape scholarly work and public discourse today.
Program
Thursday 4:40 - 6:10 PM, August-Bebel-Straße 30, 6th floor, room 06-001, and online
| April 16 | Klavdia Smola/Holger Kuße (Dresden) Introduction (only for students) |
| April 23 | Jan Surman/Kirill Levinson (Prague/Vilnius) Academic Freedom in Central Europe in the Long 19th Century as an Idea and as a Practice |
| April 30 | Maksim Demin (Bochum) Weak Centers, Strong Peripheries: Language, Mobility, and Academic Freedom in Alexander I’s Russia |
| May 7 | Irina Savelieva (Houston) University Governance Regimes in Russia: From the Soviet Model to Post-Soviet Diversity |
| May 14 | No lecture - public holiday |
| May 21 | Nadezhda Beliakova (Bielefeld) Academic Unfreedom in Religious Studies: From Late Soviet Academic Tensions to Post-Soviet Transformations |
| May 28 | Elena Zemskova (Tel-Aviv) Between 'Domestic' and 'Foreign': Why Comparative Literature Failed to Establish in the Soviet Union and Post-Soviet Russia |
| June 4 | Elena Gapova (Michigan) Autonomous Universities in the Post-Soviet Region: the Case of European Humanities University (EHU) in Belarus |
| June 11 | Ella Rossman (Prague/Leipzig) Feminist Scholarship and Academic Freedoms in Russia: A Historical Perspective |
| June 18 | Kirill Ospovat (Wisconsin-Madison) Knowledge as Power and Unfreedom: The Baconian Paradigm and the Origins of Imperial Science in Russia |
| June 25 | Dina Gusejnova/Friedrich Cain (London/Wien) Book Presentation Academia and the People. Universities, Knowledge Communities, and Dissent in Central and Eastern Europe, ca. 1900-20 |
| July 2 | Dmitry Dubrovskiy (Prague) Autonomy, Academic Freedom, Internationalization, and Authoritarian Modernization in Russia 2000-2022 |
| July 9 | Georgiy Kasianov (Lublin) (Un)usual Suspects: Academia, State, and Public Opinion |
Participate via Zoom
tu-dresden.zoom-x.de/j/62070582764?pwd=ptSmPCyA1Azd3bAhbhx5M6lT0iPkbQ.1
Meeting-ID: 620 7058 2764
Kenncode: 8$kw#NC?