Call for Papers: Academic Freedom and Globalization

The AAUP’s Journal of Academic Freedom (http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/jaf/) seeks scholarly articles relating to the topic of academic freedom and globalization. How is the expansion of US higher education around the world and the increasing international integration of academia affecting academic freedom? In what ways, conversely, is the globalization of higher education transforming academia within the United States, shifting and impinging upon traditional notions of academic freedom?

Some of the topics that might be germane to this discussion include:

• Academic freedom at satellite campuses such as NYU-Abu Dhabi and Yale-Singapore. How does the expansion of the liberal university into such authoritarian states affect its mission and the forms of academic freedom enjoyed by scholars at such institutions?
• From the Occupy movement in the US to the uprisings in Chile, the last year or so has seen a wave of student protest. These protests have often targeted the increasingly privatized, corporate character of education around the globe. In what ways have these protests highlighted issues relating to academic freedom? How, for example, has faculty control of curriculum been inflected by these apparently economically driven protests?
• The Palestinian Boycott Divest Sanctions (BDS) Movement picked up steam and generated significant controversy in recent years in the US and Britain. The AAUP rejects this campaign, largely on the grounds of academic freedom. Can a case be made for endorsing the campaign without infringing academic freedom? How might the previous history of academic boycotts inform our perspectives on this issue?
• Around the globe, austerity is being imposed on academia in the wake of the Great Recession. What is the impact of specific austerity measures on academic freedom? Where can we look to see how things might be done differently?
• During the last year, so-called Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) have exploded in popularity, with large international student subscriptions to both for-profit and not-for-profit online courses offered by elite US private institutions such as MIT and Stanford. What is the impact of such MOOCs on education and academic freedom in developing nations?