The longing for charisma.
A glimpse into the engine room of our discipline
In times of crises, the call for heroes is quickly heard. When confidence in the political actors dwindles, hopes are often pinned on extraordinary figures. Stress-resistant and blessed with foresight, they act decisively and with a cool mind. Men rise above themselves, pass a test. Helmut Schmidt conquers the Hamburg storm tide in February 1962, etc.
It is hardly any different in science. Here, too, crises occur; and here, too, luminous figures are in demand, charisma is appreciated. The script for this came from Max Weber, who in 1917 gave a much-acclaimed speech that still resonates today. In “Wissenschaft als Beruf” (Science as a Vocation), Weber depicts the professor as a heroic figure who tears himself free from all ties and summons all his intellectual powers in order to be able to answer a specific question (cf. Weber 2018).
However, if one wants to take the crises the Call speaks of as an opportunity to review one’s own scientific practice, it is necessary to break with such narratives and detach oneself from the image of the (male) master thinker. Scientific self-reflection will only be decisively enhanced if we direct our gaze into the engine room of our discipline.
Inspired by recent contributions from philosophy, cultural studies and social sciences that strive for a praxeology of the university (cf. Etzemüller 2019; Amlinger 2022; Martens/Spoerhase 2022), I propose to conceive of educational science as a social field that owes its existence to the concatenation of failure-prone, multiply framed practices that refer to one another. In the process, practices of reading and writing, of researching and teaching, of performing and educating come into view.
Even more than the aforementioned authors, to whom we owe brilliant analyses of the micro-practices of the academic field, I am interested in those procedures through which un/belonging is established. I will therefore pay particular attention to practices of regimentation, disciplining and closure (cf. Sonderegger 2016; Markow 2023). This concerns disciplinary memory and academic teaching, but also the formation of academic subjects. A practice-theoretical approach therefore not only immerses educational science in a new light: it also shows the disruption of routines – the moment of crisis – as a way of introducing new practices and testing out other forms of the pursuit of knowledge.
Literature
- Amlinger, Carolin (2022): Schreiben. Eine Soziologie literarischer Arbeit. Suhrkamp.
- Etzemüller, Thomas (Hrsg.)(2019): Der Auftritt. Performance in der Wissenschaft. transcript.
- Markow, Jekaterina (2023): An der Schwelle. Soziale Ausschlüsse in der Philosophie. Campus.
- Martus, Steffen/Carlos Spoerhase (2022): Geistesarbeit. Eine Praxeologie der Geisteswissenschaften. Suhrkamp.
- Sonderegger, Ruth (2016): Praktiken im Vollzug, in der Theorie und als Objekt der Kritik. Eine sehr kurze Einführung in Praxistheorien. In: Elke Gaugele/Jens Kastner (Hrsg.): Critical Studies. Kultur- und Sozialtheorie im Kunstfeld. Wiesbaden: VS, S. 303-323.
- Weber, Max (2018): Wissenschaft als Beruf. Hrsg. und eingeleitet von Matthias Bormuth. Matthes&Seitz.