The Struggle for Academic Freedom in an Age of Post-truth

Abstract

This essay situates the struggle for academic freedom and university autonomy at Boğaziçi University within the broader framework of post-truth. Post-truth is defined as a disinvestment from long-established norms regulating what counts as true, without introducing new criteria in their place. As such, it is a state of constant disorientation. The main argument is that post-truth has a material power basis: it is neither an intellectual problem nor one that can be solved by recourse to liberal rights. By briefly showing how neoliberalism, the New Right, and biopolitical governmentality connect and reinforce each other, the essay then asks what academic freedom can signify given the new game of power. The Boğaziçi resistance, it argues, shows how defending academic freedom cannot solely be an academic matter.