Hi, listeners! A little bonus content for you. This is audio from a recent talk I gave with the brilliant Nayanika Ghosh. You'll also hear friend of the pod, Andy Hines, who moderated our conversation at the Aydelotte Foundation at Swarthmore College. You can read more about the event here. You can also follow along with the Aydelotte podcast, Podalot here.

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Register for “Degrees, Debt, and the University: Andy Hines, Chris Newfield, Eleni Schirmer and Jason Wozniak in conversation,” Adeylotte Foundation, Swarthmore College

References and suggested readings:

• Brian Soucek. 2026. The Opinionated University: Academic Freedom, Diversity, and the Myth of Neutrality in American Higher Education. University of Chicago Press. 
• Kalven Committee: Report on the University’s Role in Political and Social Action, November 11, 1967. University of Chicago.
• Lauren Lassabe Shepherd. March 19, 2025. Whose Side Are College Administrators On? HNN.
• Hollis Robbins. December 23, 2025. The Noxiousness of Civic-Discourse Platforms. The Chronicle of Higher Education.
• Steven G Poskanzer. 2025. The University's Voice: Principled Silence and Purposeful Speech. Johns Hopkins University Press. 
• Joan Wallach Scott. 2019. Academic Freedom as an Ethical Practice. Knowledge, Power, and Academic Freedom.                   
• Check out AAUP resources on academic freedom
• Emily Bronte. Wuthering Heights.
• David Szalay. Flesh. Scribner.
• Brian Soucek’s faculty page, LinkedIn, and Bluesky

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Get in touch! Email Lauren at [email protected]. You can also anonymously request an episode or give feedback on the show.

On the learning styles myth

Register for “Degrees, Debt, and the University: Andy Hines, Chris Newfield, Eleni Schirmer and Jason Wozniak in conversation,” Adeylotte Foundation, Swarthmore College

References and suggested readings:

• Thomas Fallace. 2025. You Are Not a Kinesthetic Learner: The Troubled History of the Learning Style Idea. University of Chicago Press. 
• Thomas D. Fallace. 2018. In the Shadow of Authoritarianism: American Education in the Twentieth Century. Teachers College Press.
• Thomas D. Fallace. 2015. Race and the Origins of Progressive Education, 1880-1929. Teachers College Press.
• Thomas D. Fallace. 2010. Dewey & the Dilemma of Race: An Intellectual History, 1895-1922. Teachers College Press.
• Thomas Fallace. 2023. Racism of Maria Montessori. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 55(5), 619–631.
• Phyllis Povell. 2009. Montessori Comes to America: The Leadership of Maria Montessori and Nancy McCormick Rambusch. University Press of America.
• Maria Montessori. Pedagogical Anthropology, translated from the Italian by Frederic Taber Cooper. Lector House.
• Adam Laats. 2024. Mr. Lancaster's System: The Failed Reform That Created America's Public Schools. Johns Hopkins University Press.
• Thomas Fallace’s faculty page

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Get in touch! Email Lauren at [email protected]. You can also anonymously request an episode or give feedback on the show.

And authoritarian attacks on all of the above.

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References and suggested readings:

• Ayala Panievsky. 2026. The New Censorship: How the War on the Media is Taking Us Down. Footnote Press. 
• Laura Gerbes. 2025. Listeners Like Who? Exclusion and Resistance in the Public Radio Industry. Princeton University Press.
• Kate Wright, Martin Scott, and Mel Bunce. 2024. Capturing News, Capturing Democracy: Trump and the Voice of America. Oxford University Press.
• Lea Ypi. 2022. Free: A Child and a Country at the End of History. W. W. Norton.
• Lea Ypi. 2025. Indignity: A Life Reimagined. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
• @panievsky on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

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Get in touch! Email Lauren at [email protected]. You can also anonymously request an episode or give feedback on the show.

Request a future episode topic here

We're prepping for an upcoming mailbag episode, ask us anything here

References and suggested readings:

• Martin J. Murray. 2025. Insurgent Politics in the Lone Star State: Remembering the Antiwar Movement in Austin, Texas, 1967-1973. University of North Texas Press.
• Beverly Gage. 2023. G-man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century. Penguin.
• Gregg L. Michel. 2024. Spying on Students: The FBI, Red Squads, and Student Activists in the 1960s South. LSU Press.
• Edward H. Miller. 2016. Nut Country: Right-Wing Dallas and the Birth of the Southern Strategy. University of Chicago Press.
• Doug Rossinow. 1999. The Politics of Authenticity: Liberalism, Christianity, and the New Left in America. Columbia University Press.
• Kellie Carter Jackson. 2024. We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance. Seal Press.
• Kellie Carter Jackson. 2020. Force and Freedom: Black Abolitionists and the Politics of Violence. University of Pennsylvania Press.
• Katherine Verdery. 2018. My Life as a Spy: Investigations in a Secret Police File. Duke University Press.
• Timothy Garton Ash. 19998. The File: A Personal History. Vintage.
• Alice Embree. 2021. Voice Lessons. Briscoe Center for American History UT-Austin.
• Email Martin Murray: [email protected] 

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Get in touch! Email Lauren at [email protected]. You can also anonymously request an episode or give feedback on the show.

On all our favorite topics: imperialism, homosociality, liberalism, hazing! 

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References and suggested readings:

• John F. Morris. 2025. Students to Soldiers: Secret Military Education at Elite Schools, 1815–1945. University of Virginia Press.
• Max Egremont. 2012. Forgotten Land: Journeys Among the Ghosts of East Prussia. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
• Follow John Morris on Instagram @jfm_exclusive 

Support the show

Browse the American Campus bookshelf

Get in touch! Email Lauren at [email protected]. You can also anonymously request an episode or give feedback on the show.

On the academy’s decline since 2011.

References and suggested readings:

• Bryan Alexander. 2026. Peak Higher Ed: How to Survive the Looming Academic Crisis. Johns Hopkins University Press. 
• 2023. Universities on Fire: Higher Education in the Climate Crisis. Johns Hopkins University Press. 
• 2022. Academia Next: The Futures of Higher Education. Johns Hopkins University Press. 
• Tressie McMillan Cottom. 2017. Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy. The New Press.
• Randi Weingarten. May 6, 2025. Stop Trying to Make Everyone Go to College. New York Times.
• Luke Kemp. 2025. Goliath's Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse. Knopf.
• Sarah McLaughlin. 2025. Authoritarians in the Academy: How the Internationalization of Higher Education and Borderless Censorship Threaten Free Speech. Johns Hopkins University Press.
• Future Trends Forum. 
• Bryan’s Substack.

Support the show

Browse the American Campus bookshelf

Get in touch! Email Lauren at [email protected]. You can also anonymously request an episode or give feedback on the show.

Make a request for future episodes here

We're prepping for an upcoming mailbag episode, ask us anything here

Cheers!

Support the show

Browse the American Campus bookshelf

Get in touch! Email Lauren at [email protected]. You can also anonymously request an episode or give feedback on the show.

Make a request for future episodes here

We're prepping for an upcoming mailbag episode, ask us anything here

References and suggested readings:

• Laura K. Field. 2025. Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right. Princeton University Press. 
• Publius Decius Mus (Michael Anton). September 5, 2016. “The Flight 93 Election.” Claremont Review of Books.
• Sam Tanenhaus. 2025. Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America. Penguin Random House.
• Tanenhaus’s God and Man at Yale episode on American Campus Podcast
• Laura Field’s website
• Follow Laura on Bluesky @lkatfeld
• LK Field Notes Substack

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Get in touch! Email Lauren at [email protected]. You can also anonymously request an episode or give feedback on the show.

1920s style!

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References and suggested readings:

• Hunter M. Hampton. 2025. The Gridiron Gospel: Faith and College Football in Twentieth-Century America. University of Illinois Press. 
• John Eisenberg. 2017. Ten-Gallon War: The NFL's Cowboys, the AFL's Texans, and the Feud for Dallas's Pro Football Future. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 
• huntermhampton.com 
• Instagram @hunter_m_hampton

Support the show

Browse the American Campus bookshelf

Get in touch! Email Lauren at [email protected]. You can also anonymously request an episode or give feedback on the show.