Akademická svoboda ve věku konformity – Williamsová Joanna (2022)

Academic freedoms are increasingly threatened by a stifling culture of conformity in higher education, which restricts academic staff, the freedom of academic thought, and the development of knowledge – the very foundations upon which scientific and university institutions are built. Once, scholars demanded academic freedoms to criticize existing knowledge and seek new truths. Although today the traditional fondness for the rhetoric of academic freedoms persists, students and teachers criticize it as an outdated and elitist concept, and it is also challenged by various political and intellectual movements such as feminism, critical theory, and identity politics. This provocative book traces the decline of academic freedoms in the context of changing ideas about the purpose of the university and the nature of knowledge. The author argues that questioning this culture of conformity and censorship and defending academic freedom of expression are necessary to enable criticism and to make the intellectual project of evaluating existing knowledge and proposing new knowledge meaningful. This book is a challenge and a call to arms for the strength of academic thought.