Why we should Write Experimentally in the Academy
Summary
This thesis is an institutional critique that argues that the University of Utrecht should encourage more experimentation in its students’ production of knowledge. It explores the justification, or the lack thereof, for the university’s currently accepted forms of knowledge production that apply to students, particularly those that apply to academic writing. In the thesis i ask how these currently accepted forms reproduce colonial and patriarchal values and epistemologies; and how changes in the form of academic writing could function as an entry point to change these epistemologies.
This Thesis finds itself within the tradition of critical engagement with universities and their curriculum. Within this field, knowledge production has been questioned for years, from various theoretical backgrounds (e.g. decolonial, feminist, anti-capitalist, or intersections of these (by writers like Audre Lorde, Gloria E. Anzaldúa, Donna Haraway, and others)). More recent examples of counter-hegemonic critique are put forward by, among others, student movements such as Amsterdam’s University of Colour and Cape Town’s Rhodes Must Fall, which both aim at a decolonization of the curriculum. Where these more recent campaigns focus more on establishing a change in content (e.g. inclusion of non-Eurocentric perspectives and ideas), this thesis more strongly focusses on form in knowledge production – taking note of authors mentioned in this paragraph, it attempts to explore the questions of how the processes of knowledge production, rather than just the content, reproduce a problematic epistemology (focusing on colonial and patriarchal features); of how this relation has come to be cemented historically; of how the encouragement of experimentation in academic writing could contribute to a more responsible production of knowledge within the UU as an institution.
The text itself also serves as an example of an experimental essay, a mirror of form and function.