Reimagining the University: Sites of Knowledge, Resistance, and Epistemic Transformation
Modern universities are no longer only places to share and store knowledge, but are deeply involved in the broader social political, and economic landscapes. These shifts require a critical evaluation of how universities produce and mobilize knowledge -- including knowledge that remains deeply rooted in systems of racism, neoliberalism, and colonialsim.
Harney and Moten's (2013) concept of the undercommons describes a space of resistance within the academy that rejects normative university demands and adherence to hegemonic systems. Instead, the undercommons embraces "fugitive planning" to disrupt and evade these structures. These spaces provide a way to rethink the university not as a neutral institution but as an active site of both oppression and potential radical transformation. Within these fugitive spaces, Black scholars, activists, and communities resist institutional exploitation, control, and oppression, and create new forms of intellectual engagement that prioritize liberation, collective struggle, and knowledge creation through antiracist community-focused experiences and networks.
This project focuses on research institutes at two American universities: the REYSE Collaboratory at Clemson University and the Anti-Racism and Equity Institute at Kent State University. Both Institutes focus on rigorous and accessible scholarship that identifies and interrupts structural inequities that impact communities of color. The presentation will focus on how Black scholars, through anti-racist praxis and the creation of fugitive spaces, illustrate ways that university structures can be reimagined to prioritize anti-racist pedagogy and scholarship and emerge as sites of radical knowledge production.
Using Harney and Moten's undercommons framework, the guiding questions are: How do universities shape the knowledge they produce? What forms of resistance emerge within the university's structures, particularly through Black critical thought and praxis? And how do fugitive spaces allow Black scholars to reimagine knowledge production outside neoliberal and colonial constraints?