Strategii de putere şi discurs comemorativ în câmpul academic
Power strategies and commemorative discourse in the academic field

Summary/Abstract: In this paper I develop a critical reading of Adrian Neculau’s 2011 conference talk, “The Universities in the University. Identity Construction and Rupture in the University Field”. Drawing on the method of textual analysis, I examine how Neculau uses some concepts of social psychology by referring them back to their original context of use. Based on a strategic interpretation of the text ,I reconstruct the semantic background of the talk and show that the problem Neculau addresses is the commemorative discourse in the Romanian university field after the fall of communism. Neculau uses the notion of a social field to delegitimize the consensus model of institutional decision-making and action in the university and shows that university life must be understood in terms of an analysis of the power strategies that shape the university field. Neculau’s aim is to expose how the historiographic discourse avoids engaging in a genuine reckoning with totalitarianism by endorsing and reproducing this consensus model. Thus, Neculau’s talk raises the question of how to balance defining collective identity through the healing of memory with the demands of justice in a period of historical transition.

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