Professor Ward’s new articles on Heidegger and Emerson
Professor of Political Science Dr. Lee Ward has two forthcoming academic articles, which review the intellectual heritage of major American and German philosophers.
The article “Reconsidering Martin Heidegger on the Modern University,” forthcoming in Philosophical Investigations (November) 2024, explores Martin Heidegger’s 1933 Freiburg University Rector’s Address. While normally the Address is considered in terms of the horrors of its association with National Socialism, Ward situates it in the context of the tradition of philosophical reflection upon the political and historical significance of the modern research university. Ward highlights aspects of the Address that signified continuity with distinctively liberal presuppositions embedded in foundational ideas of the Humboldtian university. In conclusion he reflects on how Heidegger’s Address sheds light on the issues of university governance and academic freedom as the contemporary neo-liberal university confronts its own challenges.
Dr. Ward’s second publication is “Revisiting ‘The American Scholar’: Ralph Waldo Emerson on Higher Education and Democracy” forthcoming in the Winter 24/25 issue of the peer-reviewed The Journal of Thought. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s deeply individualistic doctrine of “self-reliance” is generally viewed as antagonistic to most of the moral and political reform movements of 19th century America. But in this article Ward explores the connection between the ethos of self-reliance and Emerson’s vision of reformed higher education as developed in his influential 1837 lecture “The American Scholar.” Ward argues that Emerson’s presentation of the ideal of scholarship supports a conception of the university as a venue of contested academic space capable of providing a model for robust critique of what Emerson took to be the prevailing materialist and conformist tendencies of American mass democracy. In this respect, Emerson arguably provides a very early and homegrown American argument for academic freedom that may repay further consideration today.
The two articles are part of Dr. Ward’s new in-progress monograph, which is dedicated to examining the philosophical and political foundations of the modern university.