The Age of Generation, the End of Thought

Publication Date: 12/05/2025

DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.15511599

Abstract:

This conceptual research output examines the shifting architecture of global knowledge production, asking how the university can sustain its role as a site of critical thought in an increasingly networked and automated world. Grounded in the sociology of media and institutions, it argues that recent technological shifts do not merely disrupt higher education, but accelerate a transition from substantive inquiry to performative, metric-driven knowledge. I offer a critical, historically informed intervention into how the academy navigates digital transformation, identifying a taxonomy of ‘adaptive postponement’, driven by three structural illusions: instrumental control, additive integration, and institutional exceptionalism. Building on this critique, I propose eight principles for reimagining institutional structures and outline four speculative models for the future university. Published as an open manuscript, the essay serves as an invitation to collectively rethink how knowledge might live, and where thought may take place, within an altered intellectual landscape.

https://chindusree.github.io/ReimaginingtheUniversity/

Source: Manual