The Review: The Midterms Are Coming

Higher ed is on the ballot. ADVERTISEMENT [The Review Logo]( Did someone forward you this newsletter? [Sign up free]( to receive your own copy. The midterm elections are fast approaching, and higher education is on the ballot. According to the memoirist-turned-ultraconservative-political-hopeful J.D. Vance, “[The professors are the enemy]( — an attitude whose legislative corollaries include a widespread focus on the teaching of critical race theory in college classrooms and high-profile political disputes over controversies like the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s attempt to hire Nikole Hannah-Jones. Meanwhile, President Biden’s [debt-cancellation plan]( faces Republican opposition and is likely to meet legal challenges. Two landmark anti-affirmative-action cases await their day in the Supreme Court. The elections will turn on questions of money, access, meritocracy, censorship, expertise, and even of competing social and cultural styles. All of those charged topics converge on higher ed, which has, in recent years, assumed a kind of symbolic importance it hasn’t had since the Cold War turned hot in Vietnam, when the research university was divided between, on the one hand, its establishment functions for the national-security and foreign-policy state and, on the other, its incubation of the antiwar movement and of the counterculture. Then-governor Ronald Reagan exploited the political vulnerability of the newly radical cultural postures associated with colleges by slashing funding to the UC system in the late sixties. Today, [there’s a new Ron]( in town. Since late August, the Review has been publishing a series of essays on what higher education will mean for the midterms. We began with an [analysis]( of the political fallout of Covid by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, plus paired essays from left and right: Silke-Maria Weineck’s “[Colleges Must Stop Trying to Appease the Right]( and Nate Hochman’s “[No War but the Culture War.]( The list below includes four further essays in the series. Watch out for [more]( over the next month and a half. ADVERTISEMENT SUBSCRIBE TO THE CHRONICLE Enjoying the newsletter? [Subscribe today]( for unlimited access to essential news, analysis, and advice. The Latest THE REVIEW | OPINION [What Will It Take to Make College More Affordable?]( By Rebecca S. Natow [STORY IMAGE]( Political solutions face fierce headwinds, but there’s still hope for progress. ADVERTISEMENT THE REVIEW | OPINION [Debt Forgiveness Is a Political Minefield]( By Kevin Carey [STORY IMAGE]( Biden’s plan will help millions of people who deserve relief. But it will be messy. THE REVIEW | OPINION [The Charade of Political Neutrality]( By Holden Thorp [STORY IMAGE]( Colleges are in the middle of the culture wars whether they like it or not. THE REVIEW | OPINION [The Dumbing Down of the Purpose of Higher Ed]( By Patricia McGuire [STORY IMAGE]( The university’s core values are under attack. We must speak up. THE REVIEW | OPINION [Will Artificial Intelligence Kill College Writing?]( By Jeff Schatten [STORY IMAGE]( Online programs can churn out decent papers on the cheap. What now? Recommended - “The Haudenosaunee launched assaults on neighboring groups, absorbing some but pushing others to the West, in what Hamalainen provocatively calls ‘the first large-scale westward expansion in early American history.’” In The New York Times, Jennifer Schuessler [on a new, revisionist history]( of Native America. - “The same humane emotion that pulses through his brief journalistic reports expands to give novels like Job and The Radetzky March, grimly pitiful though they are, their luminous, heartbreaking depth.” In TNYRB, [Hermione Lee on Joseph Roth]( the subject of a new biography by Keiron Pim. - “The anthropological definition of religion that has gained widespread assent among scholars of religion, who both share and reject its functionalist frame, is that formulated by Melford. E. Spiro (1966), ‘an institution consisting of culturally patterned interaction with culturally postulated superhuman beings.’” That’s from Jonathan Z. Smith’s classic “[Religion, Religions, Religious]( (1998), an overview of definitions of “religion” from early modernity on. Smith’s was one of the dozens of essays with which scholars responded to Ruth Jackson Ravenscroft’s Twitter [query]( “What’s a classic essay in your field, that you would recommend any and all students read?” - “Judaism occupied the same role for Lévinas as ancient Greece did for Heidegger — a kind of etymological and mystical grounding for his philosophical intuitions and arguments.” In a [gorgeous and twisty essay]( for Tablet, Marco Roth begins with his divorce and ends with Lévinas. And check out Roth’s most recent essay in our pages, a [profile]( of the literary critic Mark McGurl. Write to me at len.gutkin@chronicle.com. Yours, Len Gutkin FROM THE CHRONICLE STORE [Diverse Leadership for a New Era - The Chronicle Store]( [Diverse Leadership for a New Era]( Diversity in leadership can help support colleges’ mission as enrollments of low-income and minority students increase. [Order your copy today]( to explore whether colleges are meeting goals they set following the 2020 racial justice movement and implementing best practices to recruit and support an inclusive administration. NEWSLETTER FEEDBACK [Please let us know what you thought of today's newsletter in this three-question survey](. This newsletter was sent to {EMAIL}. [Read this newsletter on the web](. [Manage]( your newsletter preferences, [stop receiving]( this email, or [view]( our privacy policy. © 2022 [The Chronicle of Higher Education]( 1255 23rd Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20037