The place of university lecturing: a comparative analysis of the practice and experience of lecturing in physical and digital spaces

‟Lecturing‟ is a pedagogic practice that still seems to be at the heart of the university in various parts of the world. Today, it concerns physical as well as digital lectures. However, an educational understanding of the event of lecturing and the (dis)similarities between physical and digital lecturing is missing, and hence the reason why holding to the practice of lecturing, and even more its educational meaning, is unclear. Given the current debate and dispute regarding lecturing in the age of ICT and millennium-students, the main interest of this project is to develop an „educational theory of university lecturing‟ in order to understand its role within the university. In order to articulate „the event‟ and to define the form of both physical and digital lecturing, the project  investigates experiences, practices, materialities and theories of university lecturing. Using historical, philosophical and ethnographic approaches, an analysis is made of historical and literary accounts of lecturing practices and experiences, educational-philosophical reflections, actual and past designs of the lecture hall and web lectures (architecture, material organization), contemporary practices of physical and digital lecturing and experiences of professors and students. This will allow to elaborate an educational theory that contributes to both the public and academic debate on the role of lecturing and on the (dis)similarities between physical and digital lecturing.