Donald Trump’s election and the subsequent roiling of the U.S. political scene have been an unsettling spectacle and have occurred during an increase in right-wing power around the world.1 Why did...

The faith in progress that propelled the West for over four centuries is in decline due to its own success. The emergence of capitalism with its novel market imperatives has created both the poverty that causes political crises and the material growth that has destabilized the Earth’s climate. There is a growing sense that we are dominated by the technologies and social organizations that we hoped would liberate us. Individualism and secularity have left people feeling isolated and without a sense (...) of higher purpose, leading some to reject Enlightenment values in favor of traditionalisms and even neofascism. In universities, faculty struggle to prove their utility and relevance, because they cannot guarantee their graduates a decent living in a world of automation and globalized production. As a result of these trends, the West’s ability to produce responsible citizens is in question. Our students are largely inured to appeals to transcendent values because they are urged to be “practical.” Faculty are no longer encouraged to care about the character-building nature of a liberal education. United States universities are in danger of not having an independent voice, as those departments that can consistently get major external funding seek commercial applications for the products of their research. In the United States, ideologically based harassment and censorship of unpopular ideas takes place regularly and is a major deterrent to pursuing a career in higher education. Given these challenges, can intellectuals still make a difference in universities? Many have taken to social media and other ways of getting their ideas around the increasingly steep paywalls of academic publications and the de facto censorship in their institutions. Some of the most vibrant exchanges of ideas are now happening in other places, largely online. These venues draw in people who are trying their best to learn something they are unlikely to learn at universities. But are such alternatives truly sustainable or good enough? Higher education is at a crossroads in which even this “retreat and regroup” strategy is highly problematic. (shrink)

Volume 25, Issue 6, September 2020, Page 710-712.

Todd McGowan is professor of film studies at the University of Vermont and author of The Impossible David Lynch and Capitalism and Desire: The Psychic Cost of Free Markets. This most...

This book analyzes Tocqueville’s views on religion, family and gender roles, politics, relations with Native Americans, white southerners and slavery, and the military. It explores how these views can help form a uniquely American honor code, one that re-envisions aristocratic elements of honor within a modern democratic and capitalist society.

John Cottingham is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Reading, a renowned Descartes scholar, and author of over 30 books. His latest book, In Search of the Soul: A Philosophical...

This book, first published in French in 2013, has now been published in English, opening to a wider readership Alain Badiou’s understanding of, and at times disagreement with, the Freudian psychoan...

This book is the English translation of Alain Badiou’s seminar on Nicolas Malebranche, part of a series of seminars on Being, the One, and the Infinite. In this extraordinary seminar, originally ta...

Oxford anthropologist Ruben Andersson has written a book that is accessible for a general audience, because it is so engagingly written, and is full of information and arguments that should be read...

This original book has been consistently cited by scholars of international relations who explore the roots of realism in Thucydides's history and the political philosophy of Thomas Hobbes. While acknowledging that neither thinker fits perfectly within the confines of international relations realism, Laurie M. Johnson proposes Hobbes's philosophy is more closely aligned with it than Thucydides's.

Volume 24, Issue 6, September 2019, Page 674-676.

Matt Zwolinksi, Professor of Philosophy at the University of San Diego, and John Tomasi, President of the Heterodox Academy in New York City, have teamed up to write a thorough and thought-provokin...

Diane Coyle is an economist and Bennett Professor of Public Policy at the University of Cambridge, and co-director of the Bennett Institute. She serves in many other capacities, including as expert...

Ruben Andersson is a Professor of Social Anthropology at Oxford University, and author of No Go World (2019) and Illegality, Inc. (2014), among other works. David Keen is a Professor of Conflict St...

Stephen Bullivant is a senior lecturer in theology and ethics, and Director of the Benedict XVI Centre for Religion and Society at St. Mary’s University, London. He is the author or co-author of te...

Larry Bartels is one of the most prominent political scientists in the areas of democracy, electoral politics, and public opinion. He is the May Werthan Shayne Chair of Public Policy and Social Sci...

Todd McGowan is professor of film studies at the University of Vermont and author of The Impossible David Lynch and Capitalism and Desire: The Psychic Cost of Free Markets. This most...

Martha Nussbaum has an impressive list of books to her credit, including the great Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities (2016), and her latest, Citadels of Pride: Sexual Abuse, Accoun...

Ronald Bogue, Distinguished Research Professor of Comparative Literature and the Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Georgia, has compiled many of his previously publ...