Beginning June 2021, the Transnational STS Network will convene the STS on Edge Roundtable Series to draw intellectuals from diverse places -- especially those with nascent STS communities -- into dialogue with STS scholars. The STS on Edge Roundtable series is designed to create opportunities to meet and learn from researchers, teachers, artists and other critical cultural actors in places outside established STS networks, especially places dealing with intense volatility and precarity. We want to be informed about these areas and find ways to work in solidarity with them.
The 2021-2022 Roundtables Series will focus on the challenges and promise of universities and academic freedom. Our inaugural event on June 24, 2021 will be a discussion with faculty at Boğaziçi University (Istanbul) who have mobilized in recent months to address escalating threats to academic autonomy and freedom at the university.
STS on Edge Roundtables will be small, select, and committed to confidentiality. We want to create a safe space for unrestricted exchange. After the roundtables, we will produce reports that provide space for reflection and to create a record of the STS on Edge Roundtable Series, working closely with roundtable participants to determine what should be included and what should be left off the public record.
STS -- Science and Technology Studies -- is a transnational, interdisciplinary research community that studies the social and cultural dimensions of science and technology expansively conceived (including study of different types of knowledge and knowledge institutions, for example). The...Read more
The 2021-2022 STS on Edge Roundtables Series will focus on the challenges and promise of universities and academic freedom. The series will build on and contribute to important scholarship on the history, dynamics, social roles and future of the university.
-What specific examples illustrate the challenges of producing and protecting knowledge pluralism in Turkish university contexts today?
-How do national policies support or undermine universities in Turkey’s operating as spaces for critical reflection and envisioning of the future?
- What problems are there in the way people think and talk about constraints in Turkish universities today, even within oppositional communities?
- What kinds of transnational collaboration and solidarity has proven helpful in protecting and sustaining Turkish universities as sites for critical reflection and planning?
The Transnational STS Network is building a Critical Universities Studies Bibliography
IstanuLab’s (Turkish language) Turkish Universities Collective Bibliography Project
Angela Okune, “Decolonizing the African University: Literature Review and Critical Commentary
Francis B. Nyamnjoh, "Decolonizing the University in Africa"
Willem Halffman & Hans Radder, "The Academic Manifesto: From an Occupied to a Public University"
On January 2, 2021, President Erdoğan appointed Melih Bulu --who stood as a Justice and Development party (AKP) parliamentary candidate in 2015 and was unqualified for the post-- as rector of Boğaziçi University, one of Turkey’s most prestigious universities. Following the appointment, Boğaziçi students, academics and alumni began protesting and these protests have turned into the largest and most influential popular protest in Turkey in recent years. The damage to the university continues and so do the protests.
The STS on Edge Roundtable on 24 June 2021 will provide an opportunity for members of the Transnational STS Network to learn about Boğaziçi protests and larger challenges of Turkish universities, knowledge pluralism and academic freedom. Participation in the roundtable is restricted. A reflexive report will be released afterwards.
İstanbul Mayor İmamoğlu promises support to Boğaziçi students stripped of scholarships (June 24, 2021)
Boğaziçi protests heat up on 100th day as police presence intensifies on campus (June 1, 2021)
Silencing Academics (May 31, 2021)
Three new lawsuits by academics of Boğaziçi University (May 28, 2021)
Damage Assessment Report (May 6, 2021)
An Interview with Boğaziçi University Faculty on Contemporary Protests (March 5, 2021)
University LGBTI+ groups: We existed yesterday, we will exist tomorrow (February 8. 2021)
Turkish gov't uses protests at Boğaziçi University to attack LGBT rights with Islamist discourse (January 31, 2021)
Istanbul university students clash with police over rector appointment (January 6, 2021)
STS-Infrastructures is a digital archive, collaborative workspace and publication platform for the STS community. STS-Infrastructures is an instance of the Platform for Experimental Collaborative Ethnography, open source software...Read more