The University as power or counter-power? May 1968 and the emergence of a new learning subject

The events of May 68 in France constituted a moment of questioning of the power and of the social role of the University. Two of the philosophers who contributed the most to that questioning were Althusser and Foucault. Their thoughts on the way in which power, discourse and social institutions are articulated played a major role in awakening the students’ political consciousness and in opening the doors of the University to social movements that had been, until then, left out of academic discourse. Their positions on the events triggered passionate reactions that ended up changing the institutions of higher education from the inside. The Faure law, issued in the aftermath of the protests, on November 12, 1968, finally acknowledged that higher education should be available to mature students. Taking into account the points of contiguity between conceptual apparatuses of these authors, this paper intends to offer a reflection on the power-effects of the scientific discourse issued by the University and on how its power was contested in a period of deep ideological and political fractures, leading to a paradigmatic shift that democratized the institution and to the emergence of a new learning subject.

Abstract licence: CC BY

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