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Ideas and Universities Seminar

March 13, 2009

The Commonwealth of Universities

Professor Martial Staub will present a discussion about how and why medieval intellectuals created universities and what higher education and democratic societies today can learn from those efforts.

Beginning with underlying assumptions about the role of intellectuals in public debate and the nature of the production and transmission of knowledge, Staub will examine several major historical factors in the higher education landscape. He will combine contemporary analyses of individual scholars’ charisma with an examination of how charisma and other personal motives are tied to the institutional development of universities.

Staub will also address the creation of a commonwealth of universities in light of several major influences on the higher education landscape:

• The creation of the earliest universities in Bologna and Paris in the twelfth century
• The initiative taken by students and masters of arts, particularly the insistence on general knowledge
  
• The departure from ideas of specialism and the emancipatory dimension of medieval universitates
  
• The knowledge production and transmission in medieval universitates that created a commonwealth of universities
  
• The role played by universities in the emancipation of western societies in a democratic context
  

This presentation is part of the Ideas and Universities International Video Seminar Series and is made available on the UW–Madison campus thanks to funding and support from the UW-Madison Division of International Studies, the Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of Bristol (UK), the Worldwide Universities Network, WISCAPE, and UW–Madison's School of Education International Education Committee.

In-person attendance at the Pyle Center viewing site is strongly encouraged to ensure your opportunity to interact and discuss with other participants locally and internationally. However, for those unable to attend, WUN usually offers a live webcast of the event which can be accessed through the Ideas and Universities Seminar Series website.