The Atmosphere in Academia

Investigating the Atmosphere at the Collegium Helveticum

This is a brief virtual interview with me based on my investigation of the  Atmosphere during my Senior Fellowship at the Collegium Helveticum. This is the original submission, published in a slightly shortened version in the Annual Report of the Collegium Helveticum 2024.

Why did you choose to investigate the Atmosphere of the Collegium Helveticum?

My current geographical research interest focuses on the affective and emotional meaning of places, and how people experience these places, or short: on what places do to people and what people do with places. The functionality of a place is one thing but the ‘atmosphere’ of a place is another thing. The atmosphere often makes the real difference for places to be effective. As a scientist I am very interested in academic places, and what makes them successful. The Collegium was, therefore, a great opportunity to study this academic hotspot.

Can you explain what you mean by Atmosphere?

Atmosphere is a concept coined by phenomenologists, like Hermann Schmitz and Gernot Böhme, which describes not just the individual feelings of a person at a specific place, but the full assemblage of different aspects such as individual emotions and moods, as well as aesthetic qualities of the material setting, the cultural heritage of the place and background of the people using it as well as the social interactions which take place at such a location.

Does the Atmosphere at the Collegium differ substantially from other academic places such as usual university departments?

Yes, this was a bit of a surprise to me, that most fellows stated that this is a huge difference. Again, maybe not functionally but mainly atmospherically. So an office is not just an office… The Collegium is e.g. very special because of its multidisciplinary nature, implying that most fellows are from different disciplines, and therefore are not direct disciplinary peers. Of course, at a common university Department one might be collaborating with nice disciplinary colleagues, but implicitly they are to a certain degree also competitors. At the Collegium you only deal with fellows from other disciplines, who are very respectful even though they sometimes can pose uneasy questions, because of their different perspectives. This creates a very open and relaxed atmosphere, which makes it easy to focus and be productive, while the uneasy questions also stimulate creativity and open new horizons. It provides a real free space.

Is this the same for all fellows?

No, of course not, every fellow, enters the Collegium in a specific mood, which affects how the atmosphere is experienced, and which might also vary from day to day or from the beginning of the fellowship to the end of the fellowship. I, e.g. also interviewed a fellow who broad the tense and competitive mood which she was used to from her regular department with her into the Collegium, and did not experience the Collegium as a special liberating place. Another fellow, because of the cultural traditions from her home country, found it less easy to accommodate to the atmosphere at the collegium, even though for her as well this was a horizon-widening experience. So the mood in which they experience the atmosphere is very individual and often also changes throughout their fellowship at the Collegium.

This all seems to be about social relations and less about the place itself…

The Collegium is located at an iconic place. The former Observatory at which the Collegium is at home is constitutive of the atmosphere. It is a beautiful place, but, in comparison with regular university buildings, also a bit awkward, with its many unusual multi-purpose rooms, its roof terrace and exhibition basement. But that, like the uneasy questions of the other fellows, provokes alternative ways of doing and thinking. The aesthetics relate to the original ideal of a research university (‘Bildungsideal’). The long spiral staircase climbing up to the main observatory had a strong symbolic meaning for most fellows. They associated it somehow with the ivory tower, but also with disorientation in the positive sense of the word. Also, the open and friendly office of the director of the Collegium, where many meetings among fellows took place, played a special role in setting the Collegium atmosphere. Sometimes, beyond working time, one could also hear the soft cello music resounding from that room, as part of the homely atmosphere of that place. The whole building and place is perceived as an oasis within the dense University Quarter of Zurich. The materiality and aesthetics of the place are not separable from the events and people inhabiting the building. The shared offices provoke an atmosphere of community, and as one fellow expressed it: “If one did not hear the loud laughter of one of the this-years fellows one would really miss it”. At the same time, the building allows moments of seclusion and concentration, like during a yoga session on the rooftop terrace, or in the library in the basement. The total atmosphere at the Collegium is, therefore, a real assemblage of different sub-atmospheres in different parts of the premises, which are at the same time also part of the atmosphere in the University Quarter, the city as a whole, while also representing a bit of typical ‘Swissness’.

Does this research on the atmosphere also provide hints for further improvements at the Collegium?

Because of the many different aspects which play a role in the atmosphere of the Collegium, there are no single measures of which one can easily predict the impact. The current style in which the Collegium is run, with its focus on academic freedom and respectful informality, stands out for all fellows as a very positive contribution to the good atmosphere at the Collegium. Some fellows suggested, that in the internal debates, one could link up a bit more with current topical societal situations, like the Gaza war, giving the atmosphere a stronger touch of societal relevance. Many also suggested that the events taking place at the Collegium or which are initiated by the Collegium deserved a much more prominent place in the communication strategy of the participating universities or even of the City of Zurich, as a means to highlight and carry the very special academic atmosphere of the Collegium and the related (academic) reflections to a wider audience.

Böhme, G. (1993) Atmosphere as the Fundamental Concept of a New Aesthetics. Thesis Eleven. Vol. 36. pp. 113-126.
Schmitz, H. (2016) «Atmospheric Spaces». Ambiances,  http://journals.openedition.org/ambiances/711

 

A genealogy of the road

On November 5th, 2024 I had the honour to serve as reviewer and opponent of the PhD thesis at the public defence of Dirk-Jan Laan at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam on “How to get where we are. A genealogy of the road” in the field of Philosophy,

This multidisciplinary PhD Thesis is positioned at the interface between Philosophy, History, Geography and Spatial Planning and focusses on the road, as an emergent phenomenon developing into a directed and commonly shared route, material landscape, institutional arrangement and power geometry. It also combines different theoretical frameworks, while strongly emphasising a Foucauldian genealogical analysis. At the same time, it ogles with relational approaches, as well as with more philosophical conceptual (de)constructions This focus on the road as a key phenomenon instead of just focusing on the places or origin or destination fits very well to the very topical ‘Mobility Approach’ as also often applied in the field of Geography and Mobility Studies.

The PhD Defence attracted quite some attention from different media, e.g. on radio as well as in the ‘young talents’ section of the Newspaper ‘NRC-Handelsblad’. There Sjoerd de Jong described it as follows (my free translation into English):

‘Being on the road is not a necessary evil, but a way in which you learn how to discover and get to know the world’

Young learned Philosopher Dirk-Jan Laan likes to be on the road. His dissertation is therefore about ‘the road’, in a literal sense. ‘Ideally, we would teleport ourselves, then we would be rid of travelling,’ he says.


Photos by  Roger Cremers

No, he doesn’t like sitting still very much. His PhD at Rotterdam’s Erasmus University has only just been completed and Dirk-Jan Laan is already hitting the road again. This time for a walking tour of several months through New Zealand. After his high school exams, he had already spent six months travelling around there. ‘I wasn’t able to finish that trip then due to injuries, but so we are going to do that now,’ He says.

Meanwhile, he has also become a tour guide and would also like to explore the world as a bartender, or cleaner. His CV underlines the itinerant nature of the young doctor (32): long treks through Wales, Iceland, and Japan. With a friend, he wrote a philosophical book about a hitchhiking trip to Hong Kong,
A Philosophy for Being on the Move (2022).

Why the Wanderlust? ‘It was in there from an early age. Once, when I was six, my father said we were going to sleep under the stars, I was ready with my rolled-up sleeping bag at five in the morning.’ The effect? ‘Walking gets you into a meditative rhythm. It’s no longer about the idea of going somewhere, but about being on the road. It’s a penetrating way to experience the world.’

Now he sat still for a long time, for his PhD dissertation on ‘The Road’ – not that one of Tao, but literally, on the roads of 17th-century England, on the cusp of the industrial revolution through to modern motorways. ‘I wanted to explore where our current roads come from,’ he says. Drawing on historical case studies and philosophers such as Foucault and Deleuze, Laan examines how ‘the road’ changed its character from the eighteenth century onwards. From a ‘right’ of passage managed by a community, it increasingly became a means for elites and governments to ‘discipline’ mobility and human bodies, with rules and regulations. At the same time, increased mobility produced a great subjective sense of freedom and new possibilities. ‘Like that, I could come here quickly now to talk about my dissertation. A hundred years ago, that would have taken two days.’

More traffic on worse roads
Laan chose England because social and technological developments came together nicely there: the containment of common land (and roads), the advent of railways and, in the 20th century, the construction of motorways. ‘In the 18th century, roads were already being used more and more intensively, making them worse to walk on. This led to irritation among business and political elites, because it took time, and in emerging capitalism, time was money. At that point, you can see a clash in England between that new efficiency thinking and an older, more communal and pastoral thinking about the road as a link between communities.’ From a ‘right’, the road became a ring-fenced piece of land, managed by elites and governments, with maintenance paid for by tolls.

That process of regulation had a parallel in the rapid proliferation of enclosures, the private subdivision of land hitherto worked in common. Common land gave way to private ownership and official control. ‘Many people fell out with that land division. So you got a working class without property, which was needed for the factories.’ That too led to a different handling of space and more regulation. Additional consequence: increased mobility. ‘Foucault also points that out. As a motorist, you are constricted by all kinds of regulations, figuratively and literally. But you experience it as freedom.’

Meanwhile, dealing with the modern road also grinds and creaks. Laan’s thesis ends up being an overview of the problems with contemporary mobility, traffic deaths and traffic jams problems with contemporary mobility, traffic deaths and traffic jams. On that, he lacks deeper reflection. ‘Very concrete goals are set within a certain framework. Fewer traffic jams. But you have to ask yourself whether our approach to the road as access to the world could be very different. Especially with a view to climate and sustainability.’ Laan participated in some of Extinction Rebellion’s highway blockades.

The Ministry of Transport is interested
So what does he suggest? ‘I was asked that during the PhD too. I don’t have any ready-made recipes; as a philosopher, I mainly want to question self-evidences. Open up new ways of thinking about our way of mobility and interaction with the world. We have come to see the road as a necessary evil: being on the road should be over as soon as possible. Ideally, we would like to teleport ourselves. But being on the road is also the way we discover the world. The places you visit, the space between them and the people you meet have their own value.’

Of course, he himself is curious ‘what practical impact my work can have’. The start is there: Rijkswaterstaat has already shown interest in his research. Meanwhile, Laan, who got his degree as an external PhD student, is picking up his work again as a programmer (he prefers to say, less one-dimensionally, ‘someone who programs’) at consultancy firm Quintens, which advises governments and companies on sustainability. But first the road beckons – to somewhere else. After academic work, Laan needs to get out of his ‘bubble’ again. ‘One of the theses accompanying my dissertation was that philosophers should focus more on the world and less on each other. This also applies to public philosophers, which often remains a bit of self-help philosophy anyway. It’s best to philosophise more firmly, people can handle that.’

WHO IS DIRK-JAN LAAN?
– Year of birth
1992
– Year of birth
1992
– He lives
In Deventer. ‘It hee a good train connection and we found affordable housing there. Neither my girlfriend nor I are tied to a place for work, she is American and works as a tour guide.’
– Also likes
‘Creative work, gardening, woodworking, drawing. Also on the road.’
– Craziest hiking experience
‘A railway line in Albania, which local residents also just used as a road, as used to be common elsewhere in Europe.’

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