Curiosity, Controversy, and Intellectual Courage

Proceedings of the Spring 2024 Heterodox Libraries Symposium.

“The truth defends itself”; for all others, there’s intellectual courage. Explore scholarship, teaching practices, and resources to enhance open inquiry and face controversy with intellectual courage in this HxLibraries Symposium. Hear from thought leaders including keynote speaker Dr. Sigal Ben-Porath, Samantha Harris, Esq., Dr. Tabia Lee, and Dr. Beatriz Villarroel, learn from your colleagues’ lightning talks, and participate in a guided reading of symposium common read title, keynote Dr. Ben-Porath’s Cancel Wars: How Universities Can Foster Free Speech, Promote Inclusion, and Renew Democracy.

• Complete proceedings for Curiosity, Controversy, and Intellectual Courage (via Penn State Pressbooks).

• Introduction to Curiosity, Controversy, and Intellectual Courage.

Expert Panel

1. My Personal Journey Through the Unknown: Navigating Vanishing Stars, UAPs, Stigma and Controversies in the Astronomy Community by Dr. Beatriz Villarroel

   • Access the video recording of Villarroel’s “My Personal Journal Through the Unknown.”

2. Controversy and Courage on Campus by Samantha Harris, Esq.

   • Access the video recording of Harris’ “Controversy and Courage on Campus.”

3. America: At the Crossroads of Social Justice Teaching & Learning by Dr. Tabia “lee” Lee

   • Access the video recording of Lee’s “America at the Crossroads.”

Lightning Talks

1. Intellectual Humility and Research Confidence: Encouraging Undergraduates by Mark Lenker

   • Access the video recording of Lenker’s “Intellectual Humility and Research Confidence”

2. Curating a Viewpoint-Diverse Panel Discussion of the Political Status of Puerto Rico at a Hispanic-Serving Institution by Edward Remus

   • Access the video recording of Remus’ “Curating a Viewpoint-Diverse Panel Discussion.”

3. Foreclosed Inquiry and Intellectual Virtues in the Shakespeare Authorship Debate by Michael Q. Dudley

   • Access the video recording of Dudley’s “Foreclosed Inquiry and Intellectual Virtues”

4. The Cost of ‘Free Black Thought’ by Randy Souther

   • Access the video recording of Souther’s “The Cost of ‘Free Black Thought.”

5. Respecting Privacy of Thought in DEI Training by Kristin Antelman

   • Access the video recording of Antelman’s “Respecting Privacy of Thought in DEI Training.”

Keynote

• Cancel Wars by Dr. Sigal Ben-Porath

  • Access the video recording of Ben-Porath’s “Cancel Wars.”

Common Read

• Dispatch from Cancel Wars by Sarah Hartman-Caverly

• Experiments in the Laboratory of Democracy: A Book Discussion Guide to Cancel Wars by Sarah Hartman-Caverly (also available via Heterodoxy in the Stacks)

About Curiosity, Controversy, and Intellectual Courage

“The truth defends itself”; for all others, there’s intellectual courage. Explore scholarship, teaching practices, and resources to enhance open inquiry and face controversy with intellectual courage in this HxLibraries Symposium. Hear from thought leaders including keynote speaker Dr. Sigal Ben-Porath, Samantha Harris, Esq., Dr. Tabia Lee, and Dr. Beatriz Villarroel, learn from your colleagues’ lightning talks, and participate in a guided reading of symposium common read title, keynote Dr. Ben-Porath’s Cancel Wars: How Universities Can Foster Free Speech, Promote Inclusion, and Renew Democracy.

Studying, teaching, or otherwise expressing controversial views poses the risk of censorship, censure, or ostracism; in a word, cancellation. Faculty and students fear campus cancel culture, which then-undergraduate student Emma Camp characterized as “strict ideological conformity.” Fifty-nine percent of students report self-censoring in class; of those, sixty-two percent do so out of fear of negative reactions or retribution from classmates outside of class, according to Heterodox Academy’s 2022 Campus Expression Survey. The Knight Foundation reports that sixty-five percent of students agree that the climate on their campus prevents some people from saying what they believe because others might find it offensive. A University of Wisconsin report suggests that these fears are not unfounded, as fifty-eight percent of students agree that a classmate should be reported to university administrators for saying something in class that others feel causes harm to certain groups of people. 

Recent reporting by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) finds that more than a third of faculty self-censor out of concern for how students, colleagues, or administrators might respond to their views, and more than half are concerned about professional repercussions stemming from protected speech acts. The National Association of Scholars reports nearly 300 academic cancellations since 2020, and FIRE’s Scholars Under Fire initiative tracks more than one thousand cases since 2000.  

Campus cancel culture has also come to the attention of alumni and trustees and the public. In a 2022 survey by FIRE, nearly 6 in 10 Americans view cancel culture as a threat to freedom, and a quarter of survey respondents admit self-censoring for fear of professional or social consequences. The public’s concern about cancel culture further contributes to declining trust in higher education. While some call into question the very premise of cancel culture, regarding it as a myth, moral panic, or misappropriation of accountability culture, others claim to empirically demonstrate the reality of campus cancel culture.

This symposium joins with other efforts to teach and promote civil dialogue on college campuses by examining curiosity and intellectual courage as epistemic virtues in the pursuit of open inquiry and idea-sharing. Join us to inspire your own intellectual courage in the face of potential controversy as you explore where curiosity – and evidence and reasoning – would lead. We’ll hear from Dr. Sigal Ben-Porath, Samantha Harris, Esq., Dr. Tabia Lee, and Dr. Beatriz Villarroel, along with contributed lightning talks and a facilitated book discussion of Cancel Wars: How Universities Can Foster Free Speech, Promote Inclusion, and Renew Democracy.

Review Panel

Lightning talk proposals were anonymously reviewed by a panel of four HxLibraries members using a rubric to assess relevance to theme, content, scholarly or practical merit, viewpoint diversity, and mechanics. Our proposal acceptance rate for the 2024 Spring Symposium was 38%.

Members of the Review Panel

Gabriel J. Gardner
Interim Associate Dean, California State University, Long Beach.

Colleen Lougen
Serials and Electronic Resources Librarian, State University of New York, New Paltz.

Dr. Caroline Nappo
Director of Research and Portfolio Management, University of Illinois Foundation.
Instructor, OLLI and the iSchool at the University of Illinois.

Bridget Rowan Wipf
Research and Instruction Services Librarian, Cline Library, Northern Arizona University.

Acknowledgements

This project is supported in full by Heterodox Academy.

The opinions expressed at this event (or through such activities) are those of the individual Grantees, organizers, speakers, presenters, and attendees of such events / activities and do not necessarily reflect the views of Heterodox Academy.

HxLibraries Symposium

Learn more about the HxLibraries Symposium on Heterodoxy in the Stacks.