Last month brought an explosion of breaking news about intellectual-property issues, including copyright--the public battle over Internet-piracy bills in Congress, with ideological alliances crisscrossing standard lines, and sponsors turning against their own bills; the Supreme Court decision, "Golan v. Holder," which strengthened copyright…

The author's Coursera course, "The Modern and the Postmodern," might have been labeled "course least likely to become a massive open online course (MOOC.)" In many ways, it is an old-fashioned "great books" course, and in the 20 years the author has been teaching it, it has always relied heavily on student interaction in the classroom. Last summer…

Mark Anderson, a professor of philosophy at Belmont University, publishes an account of Nietzsche's life and work. He remembered liking "Friedrich Nietzsche" (Overlook Press, 2005), by the late independent scholar Curtis Cate, so he started rereading that one. But then he had second thoughts. After all, "Friedrich Nietzsche: A Philosophical…

Most people do not understand what religious study really is. Professors of religion are often confused with, or assumed to be allies of, professors of theology. The reason for the confusion is no secret. All too often, even at public universities, the religion department is peopled by theologians, and many of those theologians refuse to make the…

The publication of Francois Cusset's "French Theory" raises a series of fascinating questions concerning the trans-Atlantic transmission and circulation of ideas. Most important, it impels everyone to inquire why for a time French thought managed to flourish in American universities while French intellectuals rapidly abandoned the entire…

Stephen E. Braude is one of the few mainstream academics applying his intellectual training to questions that many would regard at best as impossible to answer, and at worst absolutely ridiculous: Do psychic phenomena exist? Are mediums and ghosts real? Can people move objects with their minds or predict the future? A professor of philosophy at…

Today's young academics need to lower their expectations, especially in light of the country's current economic woes. But judging from the author's experience, that mental adjustment could lead to rich opportunities. In this article, the author relates his struggle to establish a career in philosophy and provides his thoughts on the necessary…

In a speech at the University of Regensburg, the pope emphasized the role of theology in correlating faith with reason. He argued that within the university it should be accepted without question that "it is still necessary and reasonable to raise the question of God through the use of reason." That speech created an uproar in the Muslim…

Earlier 20th-century thinkers like Lewis Mumford and Edmund Wilson kept the university and its apparatus at arm's length. Indeed, they often disdained it. They oriented themselves toward an educated public, and, as a result, they developed a straightforward prose and gained a nonprofessional audience. As his reputation grew, Wilson printed up a…

While the past several decades have brought federal regulations that are designed to make animal research more humane, ethics courses still form only a patchwork across colleges. The amount and types of ethical training available to students vary widely by program and the culture of an institution. Now discussions about animal-research ethics that…

Jonathan Haidt remembers reading "Metaphors We Live By", the influential book that George P. Lakoff, a professor of linguistics and cognitive science at the University of California at Berkeley, wrote with Mark L. Johnson, a professor of philosophy at the University of Oregon. The book drew on cognitive science, psychology, linguistics, and…

A street is named after her. Back-to-back conferences celebrate her. New books champion her. Hannah Arendt has joined the small world of philosophical heroes. During her life, she received honorary degrees from Princeton, Smith, and other colleges and universities. Denmark awarded her its Sonning Prize for "commendable work that benefits European…

Director Terence Malick's movies contain his distinctive trademarks, namely sumptuous images of the natural world, a great deal of voice-over monologue, and an exploration of philosophical issues such as the purpose of life and the meaning of death. Malick's film "The New World" affords him a prefect opportunity to examine contrasts between the…

The Romanian philosopher E. M. Cioran was an influential European writer and thinker, celebrated in his mature years for works of sophisticated philosophical nuance. However, in his 20s, Cioran appears to have been a fascist and an anti-Semitic whose rants extended beyond masochistic attacks on his country.

In late April, John D. Lewis, a historian and classicist at Ashland University, flew to Virginia to deliver a lecture at George Mason University about U.S. policy toward Iran. Mr. Lewis is an admirer of the late Ayn Rand, and he shares her belief that democracies should respond to external attacks without much concern for civilian casualties. He…