What makes a university public? Publicness in conflict at the Lebanese University, 1959–2019

Abstract This paper addresses the under-theorised relationship between universities, conflict and the public sphere. Following the history of Lebanon’s only public university over sixty years (1959–2019), through periods of revolution, civil war and neoliberal reconstruction, it explores the question of what makes a university ‘public’ and why this publicness matters in times of conflict and its aftermath. Drawing on interviews with current and former students, faculty and university administrators, alongside newspaper archives, it traces the shifting political significance of the Lebanese University and its making and unmaking as a public sphere. In dialogue with political theory, four conditions of ‘publicness’ emerge, linked to struggles over difference, autonomy, accountability and space/place.