Reading the Sexual Economy of Academic Freedom with Sarah Kofman and Jacques Derrida: A Feminist Deconstruction of Kant's Concept of the University

ABSTRACT This article revisits Sarah Kofman and Jacques Derrida's work on Immanuel Kant in order to contribute to the theorisations of the ethics and politics of sexuality at universities today. It asks: how does phallogocentrism operate in the discourse of the university which we have inherited from Kant? And how can an understanding of the sexual forces woven into this discourse help us unravel and complicate the paradoxes that currently define the concept and the practice of academic freedom? By interrogating academic freedom from within an analysis of the university's sexual economy, this article aims to contribute to feminist critique with a view to renewing university discourses and practices. It shows that the contract between the nation state and scholars upon which the university is founded is not only financial or sociopolitical but also sexual. It argues that academic freedom must be conceived not as a university subject's right to speak or act freely but as a continuous ethical relationship to others – where a critique of the university's alleged sexual indifference remains paramount.