ABSTRACT
The university is a “public thing,” a necessary condition of democratic life. Public things, as Bonnie Honig argues, “are part of the ‘holding environment’ of democratic citizenship; they furnish the world of democratic life” (Honig 2017, 5). Public things are the things we build, use, and maintain collectively, that interpellate, constitute, and affect us, and without which there would be nothing to debate, constellate around, or agonistically contest. Public things also “press us into relations with others. They are sites of attachment and meaning” (Honig 2017, 6). The significance of the public university as a public thing is especially relevant in societies where only a few universities remain truly “public,” in the sense understood by Honig.
