Maybe we should be asking how we, as intellectuals, should reposition ourselves in the very societies we so often study and analyse yet rarely return to. 10/10

Our towers and gates have kept us in. Some of us barely made it in and find ourselves unable to move further. And they have kept the public out. Maybe it is only fair that we now see those towers crumble. 9/10

The intellectual class/elite has distanced itself so far from the public that, to many, academe seems like a waste of resources. Instead of ridiculing this critique, maybe we should be asking why this is being said or done in the first place. 8/10

It is worth asking: who built these institutions? Who do they serve? Who is present here with us, and more importantly, who is absent? And why? How do we reimagine these spaces while working through these questions and more? 7/10

Maybe this is the time to think about spaces that were never meant for many of us, that were designed to be accessible only to certain bodyminds, and to ask how we might make the spaces & process of knowledge production and dissemination something beyond what we were given or forced to accept. 6/10

The institutions we work within and under have always been oppressive. Maybe this moment, unsettling as it is, is also an opportunity to reimagine what was once dismissed as impossible. 5/10

If the very foundations of these institutions are under threat, if our positions within them are increasingly precarious, then we must ask: how do we rebuild? And more importantly, do we even want to rebuild in the same ways as we once did? 4/10

Yes, it might seem sudden to many of us. There are reasons why one might think so. One only needs to look up the latest news on the state of funding, research, student politics, and academic freedom in our institutions. 3/10

It is a precarious time to be in academe. With governments across different nation-states actively attacking and dismantling institutions held up as "liberal" and "left," we are witnessing Global North models being broken down, including in our own backyards. 2/10