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Len M . Findlay and Paul M . Bidwell, eds. Pursuing Academic Freedom: “Free and Fearless”? Saskatoon: Purich, 2001. NP. 245"pp. Typically, university administrators refer to themselves in official capacities as “The University,” as if the administration were the same as the university itself, as if faculty and students were subsidiary, even expendable. In a somewhat parallel way, academics so often think of the university as the exclusive container of the intellectual life of society, instead of as one part of it. But the intellectual life of society is bigger than the university; in fact, the university could not exist without the broader intellectual force of society as a whole, which feeds, sustains, and wants it. The key point is that institutions— sociological factors— have to be recognized and understood when dealing with such matters as “academic freedom.” The present volume is a collection of papers originally presented at a conference on academic freedom held at the University of Saskatchewan. There are 21 separate contributions, including the preface. Most are admirably brief. The range of disciplines represented is also admirable, from anthropology through English and history, to law, psychology, reli­ gious studies, among others. Administrators are also represented, as are practicing journalists, high school teachers, and librarians. Collections of essays are always difficult to review, and this collection is especially difficult because of its range and variety— First Nations issues, academic freedom as applied to the public schools, the meaning of academic free­ dom in the context of gay and lesbian people and their struggles, the history of copyright (and printing), learned exegeses of the esotérica of Jacques Derrida, the fairness of M adean’s magazine, concerns about the increasing corporatization of the university: all are here— and more. To write a review of this collection of essays practically means adding one more essay to the others. Clearly, this is a valuable collection, and though some essays should have been condensed, I wish people would read it, and I wish more uni­ versities and groups would hold meetings to discuss issues such as the one that is the focus of this volume. Academics are a small minority and need to communicate with each other; for one thing, they need to consti­ tute a political force on behalf of learning, if not freedom itself. Is there a difference between freedom and academic freedom? Can society be free without academic freedom? and is it possible to have academic freedom in a society that is not free? What, really, is the difference between civil rights and academic freedom (the latter a subset of the former)? Freedom, 184 INicholson as we constantly hear, means responsibility, too, but what exactly is the responsibility of academics, and to whom? Many questions, many prob­ lems— and few answers. But that may be good, as I shall try to explain. To begin at the beginning, what is academic freedom? Michiel Horne notes that there are three historical themes in Canada: “the freedom to teach and to publish, and the essential role of research as their basis... the freedom of professors to express themselves on issues of public interest... [and] the assertion of professorial autonomy at the expense of the power of governing boards and presidents” (22). Does this mean then that aca­ demic freedom is a privileging of professors at the expense of others, and that this freedom is either abused or neglected or hopelessly mired in the totalizing fallacies of the Aufklarung? Some authors here argue that it is. Others argue, more cogently, that the university is a site of external and internal pressure not to engage academic freedom as it should be engaged. That is, the corporatization of the university, the insistence that it serve corporate interests above all, compromises the intellectual work of the university. It does so in two ways, by financial pressure, so that busi­ ness agendas determine funding; and, more subtly, by moral pressure to reproduce and rationalize corporate values. Internally, the university is compromised by the ethos of competitive struggle which it fosters, and by the common attitude (widely held by the general public) that tenure is merely another word for lm t- Lifetime Meal Ticket—-a “government job at last...

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