The State of the University

Reviews / Votes

"This book is good news for theologians and a call to resolutelabour". (The Journal of SJT, Volume 64/1, 2011) "This collection of essays represents a significantchallenge for all Christians involved in higher education, frompresidents and professors to students and constituents. Hauer waspassionately demonstrates the need for the Christian community toreclaim the university, not just for job training but as a place todevelop a different way of speaking and living in the world."(Pro Rege, March 2009) "A first-order theologian turns his sights on one of themost influential institutions in the modern society: the university... Lively reading." (Books & Culture) "This collection is sometimes frustrating ... and itraises more questions than it answers. Yet it ought to be readwidely, and received as a gift to both the Church and theuniversity. For anyone involved in the work of teaching, this bookis a perfect invitation to think through questions of what we aredoing and why." (Church Times) "One feels ... invited to ruminate alongside theauthor ... Truly, food for thought." (Cresset)"With characteristic conversational energy, Hauerwas asks hisreaders to take seriously the difference which those who confessthe God of the gospel can bring to institutions of learning. Thebook grows out of the free, generous and lively wisdom of faith,and deserves to be widely debated." -John Webster, King's College, Aberdeen "Positioning himself against Yale University President RichardLevin's defense of Liberal Education as a crucial source for "thepreservation of individual freedom", Stanley Hauerwas asks theobvious but uncomfortable question, freedom for what? If studentspass through the courses in the curriculum as consumers andsightseeers, they will replicate and extend the modern malaise of alife lived without reference to anything that makes its momentsintelligible. If the university is to be more than a reflection ofan atomized society, those who live in it, says Hauerwas, must asktwo questions academics either avoid (here I am one of hisexamples) or answer with empty pieties: what is a university forand whom does it serve? It is the great merit of Hauerwas's bookthat it refuses to back away from these questions, even as itacknowledges the difficulty of giving a full and satisfying answerto them. A witty, learned , and very human meditation on therelationship between the factories of knowledge and the knowledgeof God." -Stanley Fish, Florida International University "This book by an eminent Christian theologian isprovocative for thinking fruitfully about our troubled times.Hauerwas has a subtle, learned and compassionate mind, which hebrings to bear on the secular state in which we live and on thesecular knowledge produced in our universities to serve it.Non-Christians like myself will find reading this book amind-widening experience." -Talal Asad, CUNY "Whether one agrees or disagrees with some of the positionsHauerwas stakes out, reading his work is always a bracingintellectual experience - and a deeply Christian one. The Stateof the University proves no exception. With characteristictheological craftsmanship, humor, and passion, Hauerwas turns hissights on the contemporary university, in all its dignity,wrongheadedness, goodness, and confusion. Anyone interested in thefate of theological knowledge in contemporary society, anyoneinterested in serious education (or lack thereof) in liberaldemocracies, anyone who cares for the mission of the church in thetwenty-first century will profit considerably from reading andrereading this book." -Thomas Albert Howard, Gordon College, Oxford