Synopses & Reviews
This book presents a theologically-grounded understanding of academic freedom that builds on, completes, and transforms the prevailing secular understanding. Academic freedom in the secular university, while rightly protecting scholars from external interference by ecclesiastical and political authorities, is constricting in practice because it tends to prohibit most scholars from exploring the relation of the finite world to the infinite, or God. In the Catholic university, true academic freedom means both the freedom of the scholar to pursue studies unencumbered by external interference, and freedom to pursue knowledge beyond the boundaries of specific academic disciplines toward an infinite horizon.
Synopsis
There are currently no books on Catholic higher education that offer a theological foundation for academic freedom. This book presents a theologically grounded understanding of academic freedom that builds on, extends, and completes the prevailing secular understanding for Catholic higher education.
About the Author
Kenneth Garcia is the Associate Director of the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts at the University of Notre Dame.
Table of Contents
The Current State of Catholic Higher Education
The Medieval Liberal Arts and the Journey of the Mind to God
Berlin: The Prototype of the Modern University
Academic Freedom and Religion in America
The Pursuit of Intellectual and Spiritual Wholeness, 1920-1960
The Consequence of Caesar's Gold
'The Direction Towards Which Wonder Progresses'
Implications for Faculty Development and the Curriculum
Endnotes
Selected Bibliography