Customer Reviews

Exiles from Eden: Religion and the Academic Vocation in America

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Schwehn, the dean of the honors college at Valparaiso University, has written one of the best books in the current spate of religion and higher education volumes. His focus is on teaching as the heart of the academic vocation. He argues that the virtues of religious faith nurture the kinds of virtues that are needed for teaching. He contrasts an older model of education which sought to discover truth in order to shape character, with the modern research university ideal of creating knowledge in a value free exploration so that it can be used to enhance our power. The former is more congruent with teaching and with faith. The latter is at odds with the teaching model of higher education, and in practice the research models undermines the very virtues that makes honest researchers possible.

I'm not sure I would have been as equipped to appreciate this book at an earlier stage of doctoral student life, but five years in, I have found it remarkably true to my own experience as a believer in academic life. Schwehn writes patiently and with humility but also puts his finger right on the missing notes in the modern presumptions about faculty priorities. His analysis of Weber's depiction of Wissenschaft was quite revealing, and the comparisons he draws between The Education of Henry Adams and both Augustine's Confessions and the Garden of Eden story were very powerful. If there is a quibble, it would be that I found the book's structure to be more episodic than clearly unified thematically, but the interested reader's patience is more than rewarded by hanging in for the powerful closing segments. I also wish a sequel existed, as I would love to hear Schwehn's current thoughts on prospects for realizing the alternative academic vision he paints.