University Jubilees and University History Writing

Researching and writing its history has always been one of the tasks of the university, particularly on the occasion of anniversary celebrations. Through case studies of Prague (1848, 1948), Oslo (1911), Cluj (from 1919), Leipzig (2009) and Trondheim (2010), this book shows the continuity of the close relationship between jubilees and university historiography and the impact of this interaction on the jubilee publications and academic heritage. Up to today, historians are faced with the challenge of finding a balance between an engaged, celebratory approach and a more distant, academically critical one. In its third part, the book aims to go beyond the jubilee and presents three other ways of writing university history, by focusing on the university as an educational institution.
Contributors are: Thomas Brandt, Pieter Dhondt, Marek Ďurčanský, Jonas Flöter, Jorunn Sem Fure, Trude Maurer, Emmanuelle Picard, Ana-Maria Stan and Johan Östling.

Pieter Dhondt (1976), Ph.D. in History, K.U.Leuven, is Senior Lecturer in general history at the University of Eastern Finland. Among his recent books: Un double compromis. Enjeux et débats relatifs à l'enseignement universitaire en Belgique au XIXe siècle (Academia Press 2011) and as editor National, Nordic or European? Nineteenth-Century University Jubilees and Nordic Cooperation (Brill 2011).

Universities are really fond of birthday parties [...] But why should historians get involved? Or even feel concerned? Is there more to expect from
those celebrations than magnificent but Whiggish volumes, full of idealized remembrances and clever branding? Such are the issues at stake in this original and enlightening collection of essays edited by Pieter Dhondt.[...] In his brilliant historiographical introduction, Pieter Dhondt shows how the
traditional jubilee history became more than a weapon of propaganda, with the emergence of university history as a scientific field in its own right, broadening its geographical, thematic and chronological horizons – even if this emancipation is still largely in statu nascendi. [...] their book is rewarding and useful: let us hope it paves the way to an even more independent but fully integrated university history.
Pierre Verschueren (2016). The British Journal for the History of Science, 49, p. 151-152.
doi:10.1017/S0007087416000273