Synopses & Reviews
Academic freedom has been a principle that undergirds the university since 1915. Beyond this, it also protects a spirit of free inquiry essential to a democratic society. But in the post-9/11 present, the basic principles of academic freedom have been deeply challenged. There have been many startling instances where the rhetoric of national security and terror, corporate interests, and privatization have cast a pall over the terrain of academic freedom. In the post-9/11 university, professors face job loss or tenure denial for speaking against state power, while their students pay more tuition and fall deeper in debt. This timely collection features an impressive assembly of the nations leading intellectuals, addressing some of the most urgent issues facing higher education in the United States today. Spanning a wide array of disciplinary fields, Academic Freedom in the Post-9/11 Era seeks to intervene on the economic and political crises that are compromising the future of our educational institutions.
Review
“A timely and distinguished contribution to a very important debate. In the years since 9/11, government has become more authoritarian at all levels, with increasing surveillance, secrecy, and illegal actions. In this toxic climate for academic freedom and intellectual activism, a book like this is a useful instrument for talking up and talking back to powers efforts to silence dissent. It is rare for a single anthology to include such a stellar cast.”—Ira Shor, Professor of Rhetoric/Composition, City University of New York and the College of Staten Island (CSI)
“Absolutely superb. Beyond the excellent coverage of the issues, the sheer number of top critical scholars and academic superstars from multiple disciplines is nothing short of astounding. I see potential here for this to become a defining and must-read, must-cite volume on academic freedom that becomes representative of the critical perspective.”—Kenneth J. Saltman, Professor of Educational Policy Studies and Research, DePaul University; author of The Gift of Education: Public Education and Venture Philanthropy (Palgrave, 2010); and a founding editor of http://book-smarts.net/
“This is a compelling contribution to long-standing research on and debate about academic freedom; the role, responsibilities, and the challenges of the intellectual in specific historical settings; and the relationship between academia and democratic public life. Few works, to my knowledge, string together the intellectual orbits of such powerful thinkers as this one does. They are not interested in closing conversations about academic freedom, but in opening them, and opening them widely. The debate is now almost 100 years old and, with rare exception, has not been addressed with the analytic intensity, theoretical sweep, and social relevance of this volume.”—Christopher G. Robbins, Associate Professor of Social Foundations, Eastern Michigan University
About the Author
Edward J. Carvalho is Instructor of English at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of
solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short (2007) and the poetry audiobook
Chants from the Seven Cities (2009). He is also the founding editor of
The Acknowledged Legislator and guest editor for David B. Downing's
Works and Days journal on
Academic Freedom and Intellectual Activism in the Post-9/11 University (2008-09).
David B. Downing is Professor of English and Director of the Graduate Programs in Literature and Criticism at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of The Knowledge Contract: Politics and Paradigms in the Academic Workplace (2005) and the editor or coeditor of four other books, including Beyond English, Inc.: Curricular Reform in a Global Economy (2002). Since 1984 he has edited the scholarly journal Works and Days, which publishes biannually.
Table of Contents
Reframing Academic Freedom--Edward J. Carvalho & David B. Downing * PART I: STATE OF THE UNION * Academic Unfreedom in America: Rethinking the University as a Democratic Public Sphere--Henry A. Giroux * Barefoot in New Zealand: The Politics of Campus Conflict--Cary Nelson * Marketing McCarthyism: The Medias Role in the War on Academic Freedom--John K. Wilson * PART II: CHURCHILL V. UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO * The Myth of Academic Freedom: Experiencing the Application of Liberal Principle in a Neoconservative Era--Ward Churchill * PART III: THE IMAGE AND REALITY OF TEACHING THE ISRAEL-PALESTINE CONFLICT * Civility and Academic Life--Norman G. Finkelstein * The Risk of Knowing--Irene Gendzier * PART IV: NEOLIBERAL FREEDOMS, CONTINGENCY, AND CAPITAL * Caught in the Crunch--Ellen Messer-Davidow * Academic Bondage--Jeffrey J. Williams * Take Your Ritalin and Shut Up--Marc Bousquet * Neoliberalism and the Crisis of Intellectual Engagement--Sophia A. McClennen * PART V: REFLECTIONS AND “TIGHTROPE HOPES” * Generation Kill: Nietzschean Meditations on the University, War, Youth, and Guns--Susan Searls Giroux * The Post-9/11 University: It Could Have Been Much Worse--Robert M. ONeil * Lessons from History: Interview with Noam Chomsky--Edward J. Carvalho * “Taking Back the Street Corner”: Interview with Martín Espada--Edward J. Carvalho * Preserving the Democratic Experiment: Interview with Cornel West--Edward J. Carvalho