Negotiating Memories in the Wake of Linguistic Colonialism

What is the role of higher education in the current theo-political context? This paper offers a constructive, political-theological vision of higher education as a locus for the negotiation and clarification of collective thoughts and memories that can both build up and transform the contours of existing communities. A better appreciation of epistemological pluralism and the power dynamics of knowledge-production requires going beyond reflexivity, enacting substantial institutional reforms that more strongly embeds scholarship within local communities while also providing the space for transformative encounters that can reconfigure the tensions and bounds of those communities.  I present this vision as a contrast to the "liberal university" and the particular politics of knowledge that it instantiates in both its 'dogmatic' and 'critical-reflexive' modes, highlighting the significance of religious studies in particular by means of a counter-reading of a key figure at the foundation of the discipline and the modern university: F.D.E. Schleiermacher.