Sociologický časopis / Czech Sociological Review | DOI: 10.13060/csr.2025.016

A Sociology of Slow Academia

Filip Vostal ORCID...
Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague

The notion of slow academia has been in vogue for some time now. This article maps recent literature vis-à-vis the acceleration of academic life and academic slowdown, offering five points problematising slow discourse within academia without denouncing it altogether, and makes some conceptual clarifications. It then offers an alternative concept—responsively stagnant academia—drawing on an account by Stevienna de Saille et al. (2020) of responsible stagnation contrasted with slow academia. This article concludes with the provocative question: How come multi-millionaire businesses often originate in academic corridors whilst progressive ideas that aim to reform universities remain stuck in academic publications rather than in praxis?

Keywords: slowdown, academia, temporality, time, research

Received: February 11, 2025; Revised: May 12, 2025; Accepted: May 12, 2025; Prepublished online: June 5, 2025 

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