PhD Courses in Denmark

Academic Freedom in the Politicocene

Graduate School, Arts at Aarhus University

Course description

This PhD course offers insights into the current entanglements of the political sphere with education and science. The course provides an overview of recent policies and initiatives relating to academic freedom and open science at the European and national levels. The course explores the era of the so-called politicocene. In this Politicocene, the lines between political agendas and academic inquiry are increasingly blurred, with political forces shaping and sometimes even re-directing research. This new era is characterized by the co-optation of educational and scientific domains by political interests. This co-optation has led to an increased willingness at the national and federal EU level to intervene in academic freedom and the governance arrangements that ensure the openness of higher education on the one hand, while simultaneously seeking to protect these values, on the other. These developments may risk eroding the legitimacy of what is usually described as the post-World War II liberal order and norms, but they also bear witness to colliding freedoms and protection purposes within the liberal order. Critical knowledge production, its circulation, consumption, and curation, are facing these challenges and it seems a heightened politicization of higher education fuels a tightening of control over the academy.
By inviting core international scholars within the field, this course will cover two interrelated domains: A changing geopolitical landscape and the state of play of academic freedom in the politicocene and 
Academic freedom under pressure: Culture war, authoritarianism and illiberal transformations in Europe

The course is aimed at all PhD students; those who have an interest in academic freedom as an important value and protection of their academic life and those who study academic freedom as the subject of their research.

Aim

The course is aimed at all PhD students; those who have an interest in academic freedom as an important value and protection of their academic life and those who study academic freedom as the subject of their research.

The course will provide students with an understanding of how changes in the geopolitical landscape are affecting academic freedom. Students will gain insight into key empirical and theoretical considerations in relation to academic freedom and the state-university relationship, including the tension between different protection purposes. With a focus on the EU context, upon completion of the course, students will be able to analyze and assess the conditions for academic freedom. By showcasing specific empirical examples, the course will also provide students with the ability to analyze and assess the variegated and context-specific ways in which higher education and the condition for academic freedom is being transformed. After completion of the course, students will demonstrate the ability to critically evaluate the unique role of higher education and academic freedom in a European context. Drawing also on global contexts beyond the EU, the course will touch on broader geopolitical shifts and consider Europe's position therein.

Target group/Participants

  • All early and late stage PhD scholars

Language 

  • English

Form

  • Lectures and group work

ECTS-credits

  • 2 

Lecturers

  • Katja Brøgger, Aarhus University
  • Marta Bucholc, University of Warsaw
  • Peter Maassen, Oslo University
  • Andrea Petó, Central European University, Vienna
  • Nelli Piattoeva, Tampere University
  • Andrew Ryder, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest

Literature

  • Brøgger, K. & Dakowska, D. (2026). Academic Freedom, Openness and the Shifting Geopolitics of European Higher Education. World Yearbook of Education 2026. Routledge.
  • Bucholc, M. (2022). The Rule of Law as a Postcolonial Relic: The Narrative of the Polish Right. Zeitschrift für Rechtssoziologie 42(1): 43–66.
  • Jewell, J. (2020). Academic Freedom in Hungary: Emblem of Decay in Illiberal Times. In Faculty and Student Research in Practicing Academic Freedom (Vol. 31, pp. 85-100): Emerald Publishing Limited.
  • Majtényi, B., & Ryder, A. (2024). Academic freedom and dissent in higher education: the case of Hungary. Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe, 1–17.
  • Maassen, P., Elken, Mari, Jungblut, J. (2025). De facto Academic Freedom in the European Union – Threats and Trends. European Review .
  • Moscovitz, H., & Sabzalieva, E. (2023). Conceptualising the new geopolitics of higher education. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 21(2), 149-165
  • Olsson, M (2022). Chapter 7: Academic freedom, institutional autonomy and democracy: the incursions of neoliberalism. In (ed. R. Watermeyer, R. Raaper, M. Olssen). Handbook on Academic Freedom. Elgar.
  • Pető, A. (2021). Current Comment: The Illiberal Academic Authority. An Oxymoron? Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, 44(4), 461-469.
  • Piattoeva, N., & Saari, A. (2022). Rubbing against data infrastructure(s): methodological explorations on working with(in) the impossibility of exteriority. Journal of Education Policy, 37(2), 165-185.
  • Roberts, Kirsten, Saliba, Ilyas & Spannagel, Janika (2023). University Autonomy and Academic Freedom (Chapter 2). In Lyer, K. R., Ilyas, S., & Spannagel, J. (2023). University Autonomy Decline: causes, responses, and implications for academic freedom. Taylor & Francis.
  • Wawrzyniak, J. & Glowacka-Grajper, M (2024). Postcolonial Parallels, Global Entanglements, and Practices of Decolonization: Varieties of Postcolonial Discourses on Poland in Rethinking the Social. Sociology of Crisis Experience in Central and Eastern Europe. pp. 65–90.
  • For more information, also see the 2024 European Parliament Monitor report on academic freedom: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document/EPRS_STU(2024)757798)

Venue

  • Online
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