The Battle over Truth: Science, Ideology, and Academic Resistance

In this episode of Protecting Academia at Risk, we look at what happens when the boundaries between science, politics, and ideology are deliberately blurred and who benefits from that blurring.Featuring Andrea Pető, Dina Gusejnova, Nadia Kiss, Bernhard Kleeberg, Alina Drăgolea, and Elena Trifan, the conversation moves from the attacks on gender studies to the deeper structural mechanisms that allow entire fields to be silenced, renamed, defunded, or quietly erased.We discuss how academic freedom is weaponized, how objectivity is hijacked, and why pretending to be “apolitical” has become its own political stance. From Hungary to Romania, Berkeley to Kyiv, we trace the multiple ways academic work can disappear and the small, powerful strategies of resistance that allow it to survive.We also talk about, off-campus dissent, the role of social media for scholars, and the visibility strategies Ukrainian researchers have developed under war and displacement. It’s an episode about activism inside academia, the politics of knowledge, and the micro-gestures that keep critical scholarship alive.If you want to hear more about these themes, listen to our podcast series “Protecting Academia at Risk”. Episodes available here, on Substack and Apple Play