Issue 2025, 1: Theme Section: Universities in times of crisis and transformation Introduction. (Re)Thinking the University from, in, and beyond (Post-)Socialist Europe
This special theme focuses on a regional context, whose academic history has so far been viewed primarily from a “Western” perspective. We argue, however, that the universities in the area that was supposed to be “integrated” after 1989 under the banner of Europeanisation have a history of their own. This history is shaped not only by different layers of imperial and national history, but above all by the shared experience of decades of socialist rule with its own ideas about the function of the university under socialism. The authors of this special theme present case studies from different universities in the socialist countries of Central, Eastern, and Southeast Europe and their successor states. It aims to critically assess concepts and practices of “university” within the scientific systems of these (post-)socialist countries on the one hand, and the reciprocal effects that have occurred in the exchange with political or economic discourses on the other.