Contradiction Studies

Breaking) Barriers in Academia: Mapping the Field

Sonja Drobnic (SOCIUM, U Bremen), Dora Simunovic (BIGSSS, U Bremen) Nelson Sindze Wembe (RTG Contradiction Studies & BIGSSS U Bremen) & Lisa Spanka (Equal Opportunities Office, U Bremen)

06/13/2023 1:00 pm –3:00 pm

BIGSSS, Konferenzraum, Mary Somerville Str. 7 (UNICOM Building, 3rd Floor)

Part of the lecture series NAVIGATING ACADEMIA organized by BIGSSS & the RTG Contradiction Studies

The dominant understanding of academia assumes that beneficial participation for all involved (students, early career researchers, academic staff…) is based primarily on the ability to make a valuable intellectual contribution to research. In reality, however, universities – and higher education as a whole – are complex social systems in which the agency and access of each individual is determined in multiple ways, including by gender, ethnicity, social class, and health status. These determinations can create powerful cultural and social barriers and inequalities. In the panel discussion “(Breaking) Barriers in Science: Mapping the Field,” we will try to overcome the taboo of not addressing them, identify the most common types of barriers, consider strategies for addressing them, and narrow down the future content of our Navigating Academia series.

Discussants

Prof. Dr. Sonja Drobnic SOCIUM | U Bremen

Dr. Dora Simunovic BIGSSS | U Bremen

Nelson Sindze Wembe | RTG Contradiction Studies & BIGSSS | U Bremen

Dr. Lisa Spanka Equal Opportunities Office | U Bremen

Moderated by
Dr. Christian Peters BIGSSS | U Bremen

Back to overview
relational

“At first I thought contradiction was always a relational thing; but the more I ponder it, the more I think contradiction creates relation.”

Ingo H. Warnke
space

“According to Niklas Luhmann, space is a ‘special facility to negate contradictions’”.

Julia Lossau
Afterlife of colonialism

“Contradiction comes in many different forms. None is so debilitating than when the coloniser transitions, textually not politically, to decoloniality without taking the responsibility for the afterlife of colonialism, which they continue to benefit from. Self-examination and self-interrogation of the relations of coloniality, a necessity, seem nearly impossible for the coloniser who continues to act as beneficiary, masked in the new-found language of White fragility, devoid of an ethical responsibility of the very system of White domination they claim to be against.” (Black Consciousness and the Politics of the Flesh)

Rozena Maart
coherence in thought

“The imperative of non-contradiction generally produces a coherence in thought that is often at odds with social complexities.”

Yan Suarsana
interstice

“The contradiction of law in Derrida lies in the interstice that separates the impossibility of deconstructing justice from the possibility of deconstructing law.”

Andreas Fischer-Lescano