The contemporary university, especially in the United States, is a place for free and open inquiry unencumbered by censorious forces, a place where "professors should be leading undergraduates on voyages of intellectual self-discovery." Or is it? Professor James Hankins of Harvard University joins the podcast to discuss the history of universities as institutions, the intellectual and political conditions of their founding, and what the Renaissance humanists thought of their purpose in society and the lives of their students. What light might this history shed on our current debates about academic freedom in higher education?

• "Intellectual Freedom in Medieval Universities", First Things, February 2022
• Virtue Politics: Soulcraft and Statecraft in Renaissance Italy, Harvard University Press, 2019