Chapter 8 - ‘Question, Doubt and Criticise’

Summary

Chapter 8 describes the protest movement at the Free University of Berlin, and in particular a series of conflicts over free speech. I argue that two versions of autonomy confronted each other in the Kuby Affair and the Krippendorff Affair at the FU, pitting a democratic self-conception of the student body versus administrative power. Speech provided the ostensible rationale for a struggle over student self-government, autonomy and democracy. The public use of criticism demanded by the protest movement sapped the FU rector’s authority in a cycle of provocation, overreaction and protest.