Comparative Education in Late Modernity

Abstract

Dear Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen, It is an interesting coincidence that the venue of the conference, the University of Uppsala, and the University of Tübingen, where I come from, have an equally long history: they were both founded in the same year, in 1477, at the very dawn of what historians refer to as modernity. In the many centuries that have elapsed since then, socio-cultural relations have, in an uneven process of acceleration and deceleration, become both more intensive and more extensive. Today, cooperation and exchange on all academic levels have greatly intensified, often under the umbrella of European programmes, such as Erasmus. When telling students at Tübingen that I was coming to Uppsala, I learned that many of them had already been here and had spent a most growth-conducive – in the Deweyan sense – and memorable time.