Religion, Scholarship, and Higher Education

Andrea Sterk is professor of history at the University of Minnesota.

"This collection of essays is a lively read not only for scholars, institutional administrators, and foundation officers, but for anyone interested in the evolving role of religion in American intellectual life over the last half century. This well-edited book is comprised of short, thought-provoking pieces from some of the country's leading lights in the humanities and social sciences. In first-person reflections, this collection offers a vivid and informative account of religion and scholarship over the last few decades and poses constructive questions for its future." —Publishers Weekly"The connection between religion and higher education upsets some people and satisfies others, but this volume's 18 essays plus epilog could please both parties. The essays offer an insightful and good-humored perspective on the links between religion and higher education. A strength of the collection is the distinguished and diverse retinue of participants, a rich mixture of Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and agnostics." —Library Journal"[T]thoughtful essays from a seminar on religion and higher education. [T]he essays will no doubt be useful to people in the religion and higher education business." —First Things, March 2002"The essays in Religion, Scholarship, & Higher Education cover a wide variety of topics, from whether religious beliefs affect students' relationships with their teachers to how faith can influence the interpretation of poetry, and they each make a worthwhile contribution." —The American Enterprise"This is clearly a definitive volume and should be taken seriously by anybody who wishes to investigate the topic of religion, scholarship and higher education." —Research News and Opportunities in Science and Theology"The book's greatest merit is its accessibility, its coverage of a wide range of issues, its practical testimonies, its interdisciplinary and ecumenical range. For all of this, it can be greatly commended." —Theology"Religion, Scholarship, and Higher Education is an outstanding collection of essays that serves to clarify, strengthen, and enrich the relationship between religion and the academy in the first decades of the twenty-first century. The collected wisdom in this volume will stimulate serious reflection on the vocation of teaching and research." —Teaching Theology and Religion"[A] wonderful introduction to an issue of great import. . . . [A] most interesting volume." —Catholic Southwest"[A] useful book." —International Journal of Education and Religion"This is a valuable and well-edited book whose implications stretch wider than North America. The text helps to create a vision of what higher education might be." —Journal of Beliefs & Values"[I]nsightful and useful. . . . This book will be useful to the scholar of higher education because it provides a variety of explanations—especially in terms of disciplines and fields of study in the social sciences and humanities—of the relationship of theology and religion to higher education. I recommend this work to anyone interested in religion and higher education." —Journal of Higher Education"[T]he revealing autobiographical style adopted by many of the contributions . . . provides some interesting insights into the religious motivation of at least some examples of scholarship and teaching." —Theory and Research in Education