This flagship of LSHS.e Research (by the Observatory)
[The working document below, transcribed, stapled to five pages summarizing the scientific project of the Condorcet Campus, was found on the forecourt bordering the future premises of the Campus in Aubervilliers; these pages were lying in a plastic bag also containing a used surgical mask and an empty vial of hydroalcoholic gel. A passing archivist, passionate about preserving gray literature, braved the health risks to extract and transmit to us these two precious texts, witnesses of an entire era, perhaps also heralding the advent of an even more terrifying era].
The first days of this spring, so stingy with good news, nevertheless bring us a great comfort: the publication of the "Scientific Project of the Condorcet Campus". No one is unaware that the State, in its infinite generosity, is financing the construction of the radiant city of social and human sciences on the previously virgin territories of Aubervilliers and Saint-Denis, where market gardening of yesteryear, temporarily supplanted by the prosperous trade in weed and crack, will be definitively replaced by the culture of the mind. Imposing buildings spring up from the ground every day as if by magic, ready to welcome the cream of research and higher education. The attached draft provides details: CRH, CASE, CERCEC, CRCAE, CRLAO, CEIAS, CERH, CETOBAC, CCJ, IMAF, IISM, CESOR, LAS, IIAC, CAK, FFJ, CEH, CEMS, CGS, IDHA, CREDA, CIRESC, EPHE, IRIS, CESPRA, ANHIMA, CESOR, CASE, CERH, CEH, CECMC, IISM, EPSIS, LIER, CMH, IESR, CERAP, CRESPPA, CERAL, CLAMOR, IHTP, LEM, LAMOP, GSRL, CRAL, CGS, DIA, IJN, AOROC, ENC, EXPERICE, HISTARA, LAMOP, IRHT, IHTP, LSCP, CRIDUP. Contrary to appearances, it is not the transcription of the genome of theHomo academicus gallicus. These enchanting names are answered by the avant-garde teams of the human sciences. These teams will be called upon to take on the exhilarating task of "redrawing the contours" and "describing the new configuration of knowledge within the SHS". Under the austere prose of an administrative document, one senses the youthful enthusiasm throbbing, whose metaphor of the "breast" evokes tender sensuality, this same sensuality that one will find later in the research program on "the regime and agency of emotions and sensibilities".
How can this ambitious project be achieved? The solution is as simple as it is ingenious, admirably outlined in a few words by the alert pen and powerful brain of the editor: it will suffice to "display cross-cutting themes on existing or possible future collaborations". We are dying to know what these promising cross-cutting themes are?
The document does not take long to satisfy our curiosity. We learn that the Campus will be a "laboratory" where many innovative subjects will be studied, such as "the Anthropocene", "man and nature", "environment and economy". This stale vestige of the past that is "the national framework" will be challenged, preferring "transnationalism and internationalization", with the intention of better understanding, or even promoting "migrations and mobility". All will happily engage in research on "forms of conflict and instances of domination", with a particular emphasis on "studies of intersectionalities: status, class, ethnicity, race, gender, religion". One can only applaud the audacity of this design: after a long period in which reactionary forces have slyly cast a heavy blanket of censorship over the social sciences, claiming that class, ethnicity, race and gender are only non-existent entities, simple artifices of social construction, here is the Campus preparing to restore all their scientific legitimacy to these unjustly neglected notions.
Liberating will be her gesture. Thanks to the “alternative methods and approaches” which allow to “produce decentralized narratives […] and their own time scales”, illuminated by the revolutionary achievements of the “ borderland studies "The dawn will rise from the "decentralized social sciences", the only ones to "allow the SHS to escape the effects produced by their association with colonial expansion in the 19th centurye century”. Thus, promised “pluri-, inter- and trans-disciplinarity” (PIT+), the social sciences will finally be able to work freely towards “the decolonialization of knowledge”.
The accomplishment of this high mission will not be without pitfalls. The document ends with the evocation of mysterious "dangers (internal and external) [here] weigh today on the human and social sciences”. This is why the project recommends the “creation of a ‘Social Sciences Observatory’ hosted on the Campus, which would study the situation (theoretical but also social and political) of the social sciences”. Without a doubt, this is the perfect solution to the disastrous intrigues of the government and parliamentarians who, meddling in what does not concern them and raising a sacrilegious hand on academic autonomy, dare to imagine an investigation into the alleged militant excesses in the human sciences. Let us be sure, these sciences will know how to observe themselves with this proverbial objectivity which characterizes them, to make an impartial judgment that no one can contest. Who said that the future was dark and that we do not live in the best of all conceivable worlds?
Done at Aubervilliers, on the 1ster April 2021
Illegible signature
Attachment “CAMPUS CONDORCET/SCIENTIFIC PROJECT. Outline and working document”.
