‘Politics of Knowledge’ examined at UCD symposium

“Contested Politics of Knowledge in the Public University” is the focus of a half-day symposium beginning at 10 a.m. Thursday, March 7, on the second floor of the Student Community Center at UC Davis. The event is free and open to the public.

“Embedded within broader social relations, the public university is enrolled in a diverse range of political, economic and cultural projects,” a news release said. “Understanding the forces shaping these projects and the stakes for their outcomes is necessary to build the agency for institutional transformation.

“One such approach to the transformation of the public university is through scholarship that engages with the issues and actors driving social change. Engaged scholarship seeks to build and apply knowledge in ways that both inform social change and reflect critically on the politics of knowledge itself.”

This symposium invites leaders at the forefront of engaged scholarship to provoke a critical conversation about the prospects and pitfalls of this approach. Key questions will include: How can we ensure rigor and independence of engaged scholarship? Can research be “too engaged?” What are the individual and institutional capacities necessary for effective engaged scholarship?

Speakers will be Nancy Cantor, chancellor and president of Syracuse University; George Lipsitz, professor of sociology and black studies at UC Santa Barbara; and Ken Reardon, professor and director of the City and Regional Planning Graduate Program at the University of Memphis.

Also featured will be a panel of leaders including Jesus Hernandez, UC Davis; Milton Reynolds, Facing History and Ourselves; and Young Shin, Asian Immigrant Women Advocates.