Histories of the University: Kant and Humboldt

Abstract

Speaking of the university-already, today, speaking of the university would mean speaking of its histories. Histories, in the plural, although it is perhaps inevitable that they will be heard as one: for today, speaking of the university would mean, apparently, speaking of the modern university. The modern university follows its path-its historical path; thus, a history-up to the today when one is speaking, and to the place, today's modern university, in and from which the talk is uttered and the story told. As I shall speak shortly of the Prussian university, this example adduces itself: from Konigsberg and the University of Berlin to the Free University of Berlin and the Humboldt University, emblems of a divided Germany and divided time. Could one speak of the university, today, without speaking of modern history? Could one speak of modern history without speaking for and with-in some sense, within-the voice of the modern university? That is, could one speak of the history of, say, the modern university without speaking within a certain university discourse-its archives, its disciplines, its doctrines of research and scholarshipthat would be, precisely, history? In the singular? The apparent coimplication, today, of history and the university, such that talk about the university is historical and about history is universitarian