This chapter is designed as a conversation between two researchers/teachers
with experience from two Universities, one in Australia and one in Sweden, and two
different academic contexts. The conversation is dealing with the concept of the
University, what is it and what it could be? It also touches on the issue of what it is that
could be said to be new, in the new University, and also lists some problems that existed
within the old University. To present the thoughts in the form of a conversation is our
way to both implement and present Gilles Deleuze, and Bruno Latour's epistemological
ideas in a new and more rhizomatic knowledge and University structure. The aim of the
article is not to present well defined facts about Universities, it is to start a conversation
about this burning issue and important subject.
“The justification for a university is that it preserves the connection between knowledge
and the zest for life, by uniting the young and the old in the imaginative consideration of
learning. The university imparts information, but it imparts it imaginatively. At least
that is the function it should perform for society. A university which fails in this respect
has no reason for existence” (Whitehead, 1960, p. 97).
Keywords: Deleuze, Latour, Conversations, Knowledge, Multi-versity,
Nomadology, Rhizome, Lines of Flight, Actor Network Theory, Matter of
Concern, Sweden, Australia, McDonaldization, University, Process, Learning,
Culture, Derrida.
