Working Paper 82
The University and the Social Imagination
Published May 2022

Watch the lecture

What is the role of universities in fostering and cultivating alternative visions of the future? Can universities play this role or are they part of the problem? And what are the ethical implications of taking on this position? This talk will explore the recent demand for universities to address the ‘crisis of the imagination’ and argue that if Higher Education institutions are to play a role in nurturing transformative futures this will require, in turn, a disruptive act of imagination about what a university is – one that demands a disentangling of the relationship between the contemporary university form and the institutional practices of modernity. The talk will explore some of the practices and philosophical assumptions that might support such acts of imagination and responsibility.

Read full Working Paper here.