Formative Higher Education for Public Insurgence

In this paper we explore occasions that call publics into being. Drawing on philosophers John Dewey, Charles Taylor, and Bonnie Honig we argue that the public role of universities is to vitalize “publicking.” The public is not a standing body, rather it is a local, contingent, and ad-hoc response to a problem. Publicking is verbal; it is an activity. Thinking with cultural anthropologists we then suggest that universities can serve their public role by attending to cultural rituals and practices that occasion publicking. Rituals, like community-engagement, labor organizing, and stage setting lead to a kind of wide-awakeness, we argue. However, initialing practices of awareness, what Maxine Greene calls wide-awakeness, is no easy feat. Any practice, even one designed around vitalized freedom, can become habitual. The best a university can do is cultivate a culture that offers those who live and work serial opportunities to ask the fugitive question: “what’s worth wanting?”