The university as a public space: The right to the university

Universities have in recent decades been submitted to neoliberal forms of governance, which have turned universities into corporations, which strategically have to act in relation to market demands. A side effect is that academics are increasingly subject to market pressure in terms of what kinds of judgments and truths they produce. This has put academic values of freedom and responsibility under pressure since capital has pushed itself into the spaces between people. This chapter will seek to sketch an alternative agenda by conceptualizing the university as a public space. More specifically a perspective on ethics is outlined which is summoned under the heading “rebel voices” to the neoliberal ethos. Specifically, I look at Arendt’s writings and her categories of natality, plurality, thinking, action and judgment. From these ethical dimensions, the paper seeks to carve out an academic ethics that focuses on work place affordances. By this way the seeks to describe how the university as a public space can be actualized in the micro-spaces of research, which are considered important arenas where the battle for humanity takes place.