Roundtable “Free Universities”

On 31 May, Science at Risk held a roundtable discussion on “Free Universities”. Speakers: Ilya Kalinin, Hasan Huseynov, Dmitry Bressler.

Political persecution, the closure of research centres, and the impossibility of freely and safely pursuing an academic career in contemporary Russia are all forcing scientists and academics to emigrate and seek opportunities to pursue research and university careers. European universities are not always able to provide new stakes and do not guarantee the continuation of academic specialisation. The situation encourages the creation of universities by independent researchers. The creation of new universities should not only be seen as a solution to the crisis, but also as a need for theoretical reflection on the institutional possibilities of the humanities ‘in exile’ ‘at risk’. Previous experiences of the creation of ‘new’, ‘free’, ‘flying’ universities provide an opportunity to present the cooperation of independent researchers as a strategy of cultural and political resistance and as a search for a new methodology for dealing with social and cultural reality.

Speakers:
Dmitry Bressler, philologist, specialist in the Russian literary underground of the 20th century
Hasan Huseynov, philologist, professor at Liberty University
Ilya Kalinin, visiting scholar at Princeton University

Moderator – Anna Klyatis, Ph.D. in Philology, Free University Professor and researcher at the International Institute for Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem.