Universität und Region / Università e regione
Curators
Christof Aichner / Michaela Oberhuber
Abstract
Universities are not insular, autarkic, or encapsulated institutions—rather, they are interconnected with their respective spatial environment in manifold ways and at different levels. Their economic ties are generally the most noticeable, with changes to cityscapes owing to the presence of students being similarly apparent. On the other hand, their impacts on the cultural sphere, the social environment, and the redistribution of symbolic capital are more subtle. The question of the influences a university exerts on its surroundings is closely related to that of the societal conditions of the respective academic institution itself. This applies not only to the phase of a university’s founding and the normative ideas and demands developed during it but also begs the question to what extent the institution receives and reflects societal developments and discourses.
This issue entitled “Universität und Region/Università e regione” (University and Region) attempts to approach this interwoven complex of questions, sounding out possibilities for researching the multi-layered interplay between universities and their spatial environments.
