“Academic line-ups: On life-lines, time-lines and trajectories towards the future”
Ulrike Felt
Over the past years the question of temporal structures in academic lives practices has gradually become an issue of concern. This can be seen in growing calls for “slow universities”, i.e. for a deceleration in academic lives and work, in reflections concerning academic precarity due to short term contracts or in the omnipresent future imaginaries which seem — in a quasi inescapable manner — to govern contemporary choices.
My presentation will focus more specifically on the broader phenomenon underlying many different temporal changes in academia: the predominance of the idea of “the line” as an ideal form of development, i.e. the strong pressur to align has grasped academia. This allows to create the feeling of control and order in a world that is messy and multiple. I will look at three different line-ups: at the practices through which careers are built, projects are constructed and innovations are projected. While this seems to lead to an enforced feeling of coherence and direction, we also have to care for collateral realities which are formed through these alignments.
This presentation is embedded in a wider project studying the “Contemporary chronopolitics of academic research”.
Ulrike Felt é doutorada em física teórica e é atualmente professora na área dos estudos sociais da ciência e presidente da faculdade de ciências sociais da universidade de Viena. Além da vasta experiência na área da gestão académica, é autora de inúmeras pesquisas nas áreas da sociologia do conhecimento e dos estudos sociais da ciência. As suas publicações incidem sobre diversos tópicos relacionados com o papel da ciência e da tecnologia na sociedade. Tem-se debruçado, nesse sentido, sobre temas como a importância da participação pública na ciência, a promoção da cultura científica e a relevância da política para a ciência.
