University and the différance

What is it about?

The paper explores the phenomenon of the local-worldly university. The author refers to the Derridean “différance,” to the idea of wonder (το θαυμα) and the Herderean concept of Heimat.

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Photo by Tapio Haaja on Unsplash

Photo by Tapio Haaja on Unsplash

Why is it important?

The university cannot be homeless, unanchored or uncommitted. The more intensively the universalising procedures of the control of universities are implemented, the more we are convinced that the world does not need any global institutions of higher education and research. This is because a human being is more localised than we would be willing to admit. What is important is difference, the untranslatability of knowledge and languages, the contextual grounding of thinking and action, as well as the experience of the fragility of what is “locally human,” which makes us observe closely a local human being, attached to a place, wandering about with the notion of home, and thus dispelling his or her doubts here and now, even when they tend to recur eternally.