Academic Freedom after September 11

In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, institutions of higher learning have been subjected to an increasingly sophisticated infrastructure of surveillance, intervention, and control. Are the dark clouds hovering over academic life a passing storm, or do they betoken a structural shift that undermines a key pillar of democratic societies?

This book brings together some of the nation’s leading scholars to analyze the new challenges facing the system of higher education in the United States, including the rise of conflicting interpretations of what constitutes academic freedom. In clear and powerful prose, the essays in this volume provide a solid platform for informed classroom and public discussions on the philosophical foundations, institutional practices, and political dimensions of academic freedom in the twenty-first century.

Essays by Joel Beinin, Judith Butler, Beshara Doumani, Kathleen J. Frydl, Amy Newhall, Robert Post, and Philippa Strum.

Beshara Doumani is Professor in the Department of History at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900 and editor of Family History in the Middle East: Household, Property and Gender.