The University and the Undercommons

Abstract

Philosophy thus traditionally practices a critique of knowledge which is simultaneously a denegation of knowledge (i.e., of the class struggle).Its position can be described as an irony with regard to knowledge, which it puts into question without ever touching its foundations.The questioning of knowledge in philosophy always ends in its restoration: a movement great philosophers consistently expose in each other.-Jacques Rancière, On the Shores of Politics I am a black man number one, because I am against what they have done and are still doing to us; and number two, I have something to say about the new society to be built because I have a tremendous part in that which they have sought to discredit.-C.L. R. James, C. L. R. James: His Life and Work The Only Possible Relationship to the University Today Is a Criminal One"To the university I'll steal, and there I'll steal," to borrow from Pistol at the end of Henry V, as he would surely borrow from us.This is the only possible relationship to the American university today.This may be true of universities everywhere.It may have to be true of the university in general.But certainly, this much is true in the United States: it cannot be denied that the university is a place of refuge, and it cannot be accepted that the university is a place of enlightenment.In the face of these conditions one can only sneak into the university and steal what one can.To abuse its hospitality, to spite its mission, to join its refugee colony, its gypsy encampment, to be in but not of -this is the path of the subversive intellectual in the modern university.Worry about the university.This is the injunction today in the United States, one with a long history.Call for its restoration like Harold Bloom or Stanley Fish or Gerald Graff.Call for its reform like Derek Bok or Bill Readings or Cary Nelson.Call out to it as it calls to you.But for the subversive intellectual, all of this goes on upstairs, in polite company, among the rational men.After all, the subversive intellectual came under false pretenses, with bad documents, out of love.Her labor is as necessary as it