BY J. MOUFAWAD-PAUL Alain Badiou once remarked that philosophy was “democratic” insofar as anyone is capable of critical thinking, but “undemocratic” because the pursuit of truth is not the same as voting according to one’s subjective opinion. In my opinion, this position is the basis for critical thinking and critical scholarship––anyone is capable of critical…
BY HANK REICHMAN Stephen F. Cohen, one of the world’s leading scholars of Soviet and post-Soviet history and politics and emeritus professor at Princeton and New York Universities, died of lung cancer on Friday at the age of 81. The author of ten books and numerous scholarly articles, Cohen was also a prominent public intellectual…
BY HANS-JOERG TIEDE The AAUP released today a new research report, Policies on Academic Freedom, Dismissal for Cause, Financial Exigency, and Program Discontinuance, that examines the prevalence of AAUP-supported policies in faculty handbooks and collective bargaining agreements at four-year institutions that have a tenure system. The analysis replicates a study conducted in 2000 and tracks changes that…
BY MARTIN KICH The publication of a new biography of the legendary bluesman Robert Johnson, Brother Robert: Growing Up with Robert Johnson, written by his now elderly “step-sister,” Annye Anderson, with the assistance of Preston Lauterbach. As with just about everything else associated with Johnson, his blood relation to Annye Anderson is actually not quite…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN Science magazine reports the following: Seventy-seven U.S. scientists who have won a Nobel Prize [on May 21] asked Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, and Alex Azar, secretary of Health and Human Services, to “act urgently” to review a controversial NIH decision to terminate a grant that supported…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH These statements on COVID-19’s impact on the publishing industry have been issued to mark the 26th annual World Book and Copyright Day on April 23. An Industry ‘Already Struggling for Oxygen’ We, the undersigned representatives of the global book industry urge governments all over the world to recognize, support and celebrate…
BY JUAN COLE Juan Cole is Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan and editor-in-chief of the Informed Comment blog, from which this is reposted with permission. The surgeon general, Jerome Adams, has announced that the coming week will see enormous numbers of coronavirus deaths and hospitalizations, calling it this…
BY HANK REICHMAN Earlier this month the AAUP released an important statement, In Defense of Knowledge and Higher Education, prepared by Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure. The statement has now been endorsed by these organizations: American Federation of Teachers American Historical Association Association of American Colleges and Universities American Society of Journalists and…
BY CAROLYN BETENSKY It’s Campus Equity Week, a week of action from October 21 to 25 when faculty, students, and other advocates on campuses around the country are calling attention to the increasingly precarious nature of academic employment and its negative implications for higher education. Guest blogger Carolyn Betensky focuses here on obstacles to research…
BY AARON BARLOW “She may have, and would have been right.” This cavalier dismissal points directly to the corruption at the heart of contemporary academia. It’s a response from MIT Media Lab co-founder Nicholas Negroponte to an inquiry from New York Times columnist Farhad Manjoo concerning a warning from scholar and entrepreneur Sarah Szalavitz about…