Constructing and Reconstructing History. University Jubilees at Aarhus University. Told and Untold, 1928–1978

Abstract

: This chapter investigates the told and untold, when writing university jubilee histories. The case in point is Aarhus University. The text has a triple am-bition. First, it shows how history was a tool and an argument for the creation of an university in Aarhus – and how it kept its legitimizing role even after the university was established in 1928. The narrative was anchored in a mix of private storytelling by members of ‘ the pioneering generation ’ and commissioned jubilee histories. Institutional as well as personal ambitions were of importance to the staging of the past. History was used, but also done. Second, I challenge some of the silences in the jubilee histories through a gendered and affective reading of institutional and private archives of some of the university ’ s founding fathers. This approach takes its inspiration from feminist thinker Maria Tamboukou ’ s neo-materialist reading of archives as laboratories, where silences and fragments engage the fantasy and imagination of the historian. Thirdly, I wish to contribute to the reflections on how to connect institutional jubilee histories with narratives of academic every day routine, lived and done by men and women who interact, with all the passions, conflicts, power and gendered hierarchies this entails.