Difference between revisions of "Michael Rectenwald"

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{{Advert|date=August 2021}}{{short description|American scholar (born 1959)}}
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{{person
{{Infobox person
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|wikipedia=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Rectenwald
| name              = Michael Rectenwald
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|website=http://www.michaelrectenwald.com
| birth_date         = {{Birth-date and age|29 January 1959}}
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|constitutes=
| occupation        = [[Scholar]]
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|birth_date=29 January 1959
| organization      = [[New York University]]
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|citizenship=
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|nationality=American
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|twitter=https://twitter.com/TheAntiPCProf/
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|parents=
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|wikiquote=
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|birth_place=
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|interests=Social justice, "Social Justice Warrior", Political correctness, Cancel culture, Censorship, Leftism, Identity politics
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|image=Michael Rectenwald.jpg
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|religion=
 
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'''Michael Rectenwald''' is an American scholar who has taught at several institutions, most notably at [[New York University]] (NYU).
  
'''<nowiki>Michael Rectenwald</nowiki>''' (born January 29, 1959) is an American scholar who has taught at several institutions, most notably at [[New York University]] (NYU). Although his scholarship has focused primarily on 19th-century British [[secularism]], contemporary secularism, and the 19th-century [[freethought]] movement, he may be best known as a critic of the contemporary [[social justice]] movement and its effects in the academy, as he describes in his memoir, ''Springtime for Snowflakes: Social Justice and Its Postmodern Parentage'', published in 2018.
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==Career==
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Rectenwald has taught at universities since [[1993]], including at [[Case Western Reserve University]], [[Carnegie Mellon University]], [[Duke University]], [[North Carolina Central University]], and [[New York University]], where he was a Professor of Liberal and Global Liberal Studies for more than ten years before retiring in January 2019.
  
==Early life and education==
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Although his scholarship has focused primarily on 19th-century British [[secularism]], contemporary secularism, and the 19th-century [[freethought]] movement, he may be best known as a critic of the contemporary [[social justice]] movement and its effects on academia.
Rectenwald's 2018 memoir records that he was the seventh of nine children born.<ref>''Springtime for Snowflakes'', (Nashville, TN: New English Review Press), 31</ref>  He grew up in a Catholic German-American family on the north side of [[Pittsburgh|Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania]].{{cn|date=January 2021}}
 
 
 
A graduate of [[North Catholic High School]] in 1977, Rectenwald's undergraduate studies in English included a close apprenticeship with [[Beat Generation]] poet [[Allen Ginsberg]] at [[Naropa University]] (formerly Naropa Institute) during the 1979–80 school year.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://dangerousminds.net/comments/previously_unpublished_interview_with_allen_ginsberg|title=A Dangerous Minds exclusive: Previously unpublished interview with Allen Ginsberg|date=March 2, 2015|website=DangerousMinds|access-date=February 18, 2019}}</ref> He graduated cum laude from the [[University of Pittsburgh]] in 1983 with a B.A. in English literature. In 1997, [[Case Western Reserve University]] awarded Rectenwald a master's degree in English literature.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://english.case.edu/interview-with-michael-rectenwald-97/|title=Interview with Michael Rectenwald ('97) – Department of English|language=en-US|access-date=February 18, 2019}}</ref> In 2004, [[Carnegie Mellon University]] conferred upon Rectenwald a Ph.D. in literary and [[cultural studies]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/english/graduate/phd_lcs/dissertations_placement/diss_abstracts/mark-rectenwald.html|title=Michael Rectenwald - Department of English - Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences - Carnegie Mellon University|publisher=[[Carnegie Mellon University]]|access-date=February 18, 2019}}</ref> He was recognized by Carnegie Mellon as among its top-performing graduates, when in the span of one year, he published three books.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/english/news/2015/michael-rectenwald-lcs.html|title=Three Books, One Year - Department of English - Carnegie Mellon University|date=September 28, 2015
 
|publisher=[[Carnegie Mellon University]]|access-date=February 18, 2019}}</ref>
 
 
 
==Academic career==
 
Rectenwald has taught at universities since 1993, including at [[Case Western Reserve University]], [[Carnegie Mellon University]], [[Duke University]], [[North Carolina Central University]], and [[New York University]], where he was a Professor of Liberal and Global Liberal Studies for more than ten years before retiring in January 2019.{{cn|date=January 2021}}
 
 
 
===Research contributions===
 
Rectenwald has written extensively on the origins of the movement called [[secularism]], which was founded in London in 1851 by [[George Jacob Holyoake]].<ref>Holyoake, G.J. (1896). ''English Secularism: A Confession of Belief''. Library of Alexandria. pp. 47−48. {{ISBN|978-1-465-51332-8}}. {{ISBN|1-46551332-9}}.</ref> Rectenwald's research has established that secularism was a significant cultural and philosophical source for [[agnosticism]], and for the emerging new creed of "[[scientific naturalism]]” propounded by [[Thomas Henry Huxley]], [[John Tyndall]], [[Herbert Spencer]], and others.  Scientific naturalism is noteworthy for being the philosophical basis of "the Darwinian circle," i.e., the 19th century scientists of note most responsible for the general acceptance of [[Charles Darwin]]’s theory of evolution via natural selection.<ref>Stanley, Matthew. (2015) ''Huxley’s Church and Maxwell’s Demon: From Theistic Science to Naturalistic Science'' (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press); Lightman, Bernard V. and M. S. Reidy (eds.). ''The Age of Scientific Naturalism''; and G. Dawson (eds) (2014) ''Victorian Scientific Naturalism: Community, Identity, Continuity'' (Chicago; London: The University of Chicago Press).</ref>
 
 
 
Rectenwald argues in "Secularism and the cultures of nineteenth-century scientific naturalism," published in ''[[The British Journal for the History of Science]]'' in June 2013: "Not only did early Secularism help clear the way by fighting battles with the state and religious interlocutors, but it also served as a source for what Huxley, almost twenty years later, termed 'agnosticism'...In Holyoake's Secularism we find the beginnings of the mutation of radical infidelity into the respectability necessary for the acceptance of scientific naturalism, and also the distancing of later forms of infidelity incompatible with it. Holyoake's Secularism represents an important early stage of scientific naturalism."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Rectenwald|first=Michael|date=June 2013|title=Secularism and the cultures of nineteenth-century scientific naturalism|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-for-the-history-of-science/article/secularism-and-the-cultures-of-nineteenthcentury-scientific-naturalism/3F6655169ADBF69052E72D431FD6AFFD|journal=The British Journal for the History of Science|language=en|volume=46|issue=2|pages=231–254|doi=10.1017/S0007087412000738|s2cid=145566942|issn=0007-0874}}</ref>
 
 
 
In his book, ''Nineteenth-Century British Secularism: Science, Religion and Literature'', Rectenwald applies the conception of [[secularity]] as developed by philosopher [[Charles Taylor (philosopher)|Charles Taylor]] in ''A Secular Age'' (2007) to 19th-century Great Britain. The book is interdisciplinary, with chapters treating the secular antipodes [[Richard Carlile]] and [[Thomas Carlyle]], the geology of [[Charles Lyell]], the significance of George Jacob Holyoake's secularism, the emergence of scientific [[Naturalism (philosophy)|naturalism]], the religiosity and secularity of the Newman brothers ([[John Henry Newman]], [[Francis William Newman]] and Charles Robert Newman) and the [[postsecularism]] of the novel ''[[Daniel Deronda]]'' by [[George Eliot]].
 
 
 
In Holyoake's ''Secularism'', Rectenwald locates a precursor for Charles Taylor’s version of secularity as the immanent frame that structures the conditions of belief and unbelief in [[modernity]].<ref>Rectenwald, Michael. (2016). ''Nineteenth-Century British Secularism: Science, Religion and Literature''. Houndsmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 106.</ref>  According to a review in ''[[Victorian Studies]]'', "Rectenwald thus offers a revisionist interpretation that, rather than understanding Holyoake's leadership of the free thought movement as a failed rhetorical attempt to make society more secular, sees it as marking a distinct moment in modernity."<ref>Reagles, David G. ''Nineteenth-Century British Secularism: Science, Religion, and Literature'' by Michael Rectenwald (review). ''[[Victorian Studies]]'', Vol. 59, No. 4 (Summer 2017), pp. 681–682.</ref>
 
  
 
==Critique of social justice and leftism in academia==
 
==Critique of social justice and leftism in academia==
 
===@antipcnyuprof Twitter account===
 
===@antipcnyuprof Twitter account===
On September 12, 2016, Rectenwald created the [[Twitter]] account @antipcnyuprof and began tweeting criticisms of what he saw as excesses of [[political correctness]] and [[social justice]] ideology on North American colleges and universities. A student reporter for the ''[[Washington Square News]],'' [[New York University]]'s weekly student newspaper, discovered him; and he subsequently gave an interview revealing himself as the NYU faculty member behind the @antipcnyuprof Twitter handle.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Q&A with a Deplorable NYU Professor
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On September 12, [[2016]], Rectenwald created the [[Twitter]] account @antipcnyuprof and began tweeting criticisms of what he saw as excesses of [[political correctness]] and [[social justice]] ideology on North American colleges and universities. A student reporter for the ''[[Washington Square News]],'' [[New York University]]'s weekly student newspaper, discovered him; and he subsequently gave an interview revealing himself as the NYU faculty member behind the @antipcnyuprof Twitter handle.<ref>https://nyunews.com/2016/10/24/qa-with-a-deplorable-nyu-professor/</ref>
|url=https://nyunews.com/2016/10/24/qa-with-a-deplorable-nyu-professor/|last=Siu|first=Diamond|date=24 October 2016|website=Washington Square News}}</ref>
 
  
In a November 3, 2016 op-ed at [[The Washington Post]], Rectenwald claimed that two days after the student interview, he was summoned by Dean Fred Schwarzbach and was "strongly encouraged to take a paid leave of absence."<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/11/03/campus-pc-culture-is-so-rampant-that-nyu-is-paying-to-silence-me/|title=Here's what happened when I challenged the PC campus culture at NYU|last=Rectenwald|first=Michael|date=November 3, 2016|work=The Washington Post|access-date=February 27, 2019}}</ref> Schwarzbach denied Rectenwald's claims and posted all email correspondence between the two from November 1 through November 11, showing that Rectenwald had requested the leave himself.<ref>{{Cite web|title=UPDATE 11/11: Email Correspondence between Professor Michael Rectenwald and Dean Fred Schwarzbach|url=https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2016/november/email-correspondence-between-professor-michael-rectenwald-and-de.html|date=11 November 2016|website=New York University}}</ref>
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In a November 3, [[2016]] op-ed at [[The Washington Post]], Rectenwald claimed that two days after the student interview, he was summoned by Dean Fred Schwarzbach and was "strongly encouraged to take a paid leave of absence."<ref>https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/11/03/campus-pc-culture-is-so-rampant-that-nyu-is-paying-to-silence-me/</ref> Schwarzbach denied Rectenwald's claims and posted all email correspondence between the two from November 1 through November 11, showing that Rectenwald had requested the leave himself.<ref>https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2016/november/email-correspondence-between-professor-michael-rectenwald-and-de.html</ref>
  
 
===NYU cancels Yiannapoulos event===
 
===NYU cancels Yiannapoulos event===
On October 30, 2018, New York City Mayor [[Bill de Blasio]] requested that NYU cancel an in-class lecture on [[Halloween]] that was to be delivered the next day by Rectenwald's guest, the controversial British polemicist [[Milo Yiannopoulos]]. The mayor cited concerns about the availability of the [[New York City Police Department]] (NYPD) to perform security duties at NYU during the same time they would be needed to police [[New York's Village Halloween Parade]].<ref>{{cite news |last1=Tacopino |first1=Joe |last2=Gonen |first2=Yoav |date=October 30, 2018 |title=Milo Yiannopoulos' Halloween speech at NYU postponed over security concerns |url=https://nypost.com/2018/10/30/milo-yiannopoulos-halloween-speech-at-nyu-postponed-over-security-concerns/ |work=[[New York Post]] |access-date=February 21, 2019 }}</ref> NYU complied with the mayor's request.<ref>{{cite news |last=Kanno-Youngs |first=Zolan |date=October 21, 2016 |title=Some Students Frustrated After NYU Cancels Milo Yiannopoulos Speech |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/some-students-frustrated-after-nyu-cancels-milo-yiannopoulos-speech-1477086642 |work=[[The Wall Street Journal]] |access-date=February 21, 2019 }}</ref>
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On October 30, [[2018]], New York City Mayor [[Bill de Blasio]] requested that NYU cancel an in-class lecture on [[Halloween]] that was to be delivered the next day by Rectenwald's guest, the controversial British polemicist [[Milo Yiannopoulos]]. The mayor cited concerns about the availability of the [[New York City Police Department]] (NYPD) to perform security duties at NYU during the same time they would be needed to police New York's Village Halloween Parade.<ref>https://nypost.com/2018/10/30/milo-yiannopoulos-halloween-speech-at-nyu-postponed-over-security-concerns/ </ref> NYU complied with the mayor's request.<ref>https://www.wsj.com/articles/some-students-frustrated-after-nyu-cancels-milo-yiannopoulos-speech-1477086642</ref>
  
 
===''Springtime for Snowflakes''===
 
===''Springtime for Snowflakes''===
In 2018, the New English Review Press published Rectenwald's memoir, ''Springtime for Snowflakes: Social Justice and Its Postmodern Parentage''.  Rectenwald recounts his academic career and his intellectual evolution.  He critiques the contemporary social justice culture in the academy, arguing that it is rooted in [[socialist]] and postmodernist thought and describing its constituent concepts such as [[deconstruction]], belief in [[toxic masculinity]], [[social constructivism]], and [[radical constructivism]].  Rectenwald concludes that such ideology has promoted an authoritarian and dogmatic culture in parts of the academy.<ref>{{cite news |last=Messenger |first=Stephen |date=July 30, 2018 |title=Springtime for Snowflakes: "Social Justice" and Its Postmodern Parentage: A Review |url=https://areomagazine.com/2018/07/30/springtime-for-snowflakes-social-justice-and-its-postmodern-parentage-a-review/ |work=Areo |access-date=February 21, 2019 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Vigo |first=Julian |date=August 2, 2018 |title=Springtime for Snowflakes: An NYU Professor Takes On Academia's "Social Justice Warriors" |url=https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2018/08/39338/ |work=[[Public Discourse (journal)|Public Discourse]] |location=[[Princeton, New Jersey]] |access-date=February 21, 2019 }}</ref>
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In [[2018]], the New English Review Press published Rectenwald's memoir, ''Springtime for Snowflakes: Social Justice and Its Postmodern Parentage''.  Rectenwald recounts his academic career and his intellectual evolution.  He critiques the contemporary social justice culture in the academy, arguing that it is rooted in [[socialist]] and postmodernist thought and describing its constituent concepts such as [[deconstruction]], belief in [[toxic masculinity]], [[social constructivism]], and [[radical constructivism]].  Rectenwald concludes that such ideology has promoted an authoritarian and dogmatic culture in parts of the academy.<ref>https://areomagazine.com/2018/07/30/springtime-for-snowflakes-social-justice-and-its-postmodern-parentage-a-review/</ref><ref>https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2018/08/39338/</ref>
  
==Works==
 
  
===Books===
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===Bibliography===
* ''The Eros of the Baby Boom Eras''. Bethesda, MD: Apogee Books (1991).
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* ''The Eros of the Baby Boom Eras'' (1991)
* ''The Thief and Other Stories.'' Apogee Publishing (2013) self-published.
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* ''The Thief and Other Stories.'' (2013) self-published
* ''Breach'': ''Collected Poems''. Apogee Publishing (2013) self-published.
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* ''Breach'': ''Collected Poems'' (2013) self-published
* Rectenwald, Michael, and Lisa Carl. ''Academic Writing, Real World Topics''. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Press (May 28, 2015).
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* ''Academic Writing, Real World Topics'' (2015)
* Rectenwald, Michael, Rochelle Almeida and George Levine, eds. ''Global Secularisms in a Post-Secular Age''. Boston: De Gruyter (September 25, 2015).
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* ''Global Secularisms in a Post-Secular Age'' (2015)
* ''Nineteenth-Century British Secularism'': Science, Religion and Literature. Houndsmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK; New York: Palgrave Macmillan (2016).
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* ''Nineteenth-Century British Secularism'': Science, Religion and Literature (2016).
* Rectenwald, Michael and Lisa Carl. ''Academic Writing, Real World Topics''. (Concise Edition). Peterborough, Ont: Broadview Press (July 20, 2016).
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* ''Academic Writing, Real World Topics'' (2016).
* ''Springtime for Snowflakes: Social Justice and Its Postmodern Parentage''. Nashville. TN; London, UK: New English Review Press (2018).
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* ''Springtime for Snowflakes: Social Justice and Its Postmodern Parentage'' (2018).
* ''Google Archipelago'': ''The Digital Gulag and the Simulation of Freedom''. Nashville, TN; London, UK: New English Review Press. (September 30, 2019).
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* ''Google Archipelago'': ''The Digital Gulag and the Simulation of Freedom''(2019).
* Rectenwald, Michael. ''Beyond Woke.'' New English Review Press. (May 18, 2020)
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* ''Beyond Woke'' (2020)
 
 
===Selected articles===
 
* "Reading Around the Kids." In Constance Coiner and Diana Hume George, eds. ''The Family Track: Keeping Your Faculties while You Mentor, Nurture, Teach, and Serve''. University of Illinois Press, (1998): 107–13.
 
* "Local Histories, Broader Implications." ''College Composition and Communication'' 60, no. 2 (2008): 448.
 
* Smythe, Thomas W. and Michael Rectenwald. "Craig on God and Morality." ''International Philosophical Quarterly''. 51.3. 203 (September 2011): 331–38.
 
* "Secularism." In Margaret Harris, ed. ''George Eliot in Context''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2013): 271–78.
 
* "Secularism and the Cultures of Nineteenth-century Scientific Naturalism." ''The British Journal for the History of Science''. 46.2 (June 2013): 231–54.
 
* "Mid-Nineteenth-Century British Secularism and its Contemporary Post-Secular Implications." In Michael Rectenwald, Rochelle Almeida and George Levine, eds. ''Global Secularisms in a Post- Secular Age''. Boston: De Gruyter (2015): 43–64.
 
* "Introduction: Global Secularisms in a Post-Secular Age." In Michael Rectenwald, Rochelle Almeida and George Levine, eds. ''Global Secularisms in a Post- Secular Age''. Boston and Berlin: De Gruyter (2015): 1–24.
 
* "Secularism as Modern Secularity." In Ryan T. Cragun, Lori Fazzino, Christel Manning, eds. ''Organized Secularism in the United States''.  Boston and * * Berlin: De Gruyter (November 2017): 31–56.
 
* "'Social Justice' and Its Postmodern Parentage." ''[[Academic Questions]]''. 31.2. (April 10, 2018): 130–139.
 
 
 
==References==
 
{{Reflist}}
 
  
 
==External links==
 
==External links==
* {{Official website|http://www.michaelrectenwald.com}}
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*[[Mises]] [https://mises.org/profile/michael-rectenwald profile]
* {{Twitter|antipcnyuprof}}
 
  
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==References==
[[Category:1959 births]]
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Living people]]
 
[[Category:Case Western Reserve University alumni]]
 
[[Category:Carnegie Mellon University alumni]]
 
[[Category:New York University faculty]]
 
[[Category:North Carolina Central University faculty]]
 
[[Category:University of Pittsburgh alumni]]
 
[[Category:People from Pittsburgh]]
 

Latest revision as of 01:20, 5 December 2021

Person.png Michael Rectenwald   Twitter WebsiteRdf-entity.pngRdf-icon.png
Michael Rectenwald.jpg
Born29 January 1959
NationalityAmerican
Interests • Social justice
• "Social Justice Warrior"
• Political correctness
• Cancel culture
• Censorship
• Leftism
• Identity politics

Michael Rectenwald is an American scholar who has taught at several institutions, most notably at New York University (NYU).

Career

Rectenwald has taught at universities since 1993, including at Case Western Reserve University, Carnegie Mellon University, Duke University, North Carolina Central University, and New York University, where he was a Professor of Liberal and Global Liberal Studies for more than ten years before retiring in January 2019.

Although his scholarship has focused primarily on 19th-century British secularism, contemporary secularism, and the 19th-century freethought movement, he may be best known as a critic of the contemporary social justice movement and its effects on academia.

Critique of social justice and leftism in academia

@antipcnyuprof Twitter account

On September 12, 2016, Rectenwald created the Twitter account @antipcnyuprof and began tweeting criticisms of what he saw as excesses of political correctness and social justice ideology on North American colleges and universities. A student reporter for the Washington Square News, New York University's weekly student newspaper, discovered him; and he subsequently gave an interview revealing himself as the NYU faculty member behind the @antipcnyuprof Twitter handle.[1]

In a November 3, 2016 op-ed at The Washington Post, Rectenwald claimed that two days after the student interview, he was summoned by Dean Fred Schwarzbach and was "strongly encouraged to take a paid leave of absence."[2] Schwarzbach denied Rectenwald's claims and posted all email correspondence between the two from November 1 through November 11, showing that Rectenwald had requested the leave himself.[3]

NYU cancels Yiannapoulos event

On October 30, 2018, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio requested that NYU cancel an in-class lecture on Halloween that was to be delivered the next day by Rectenwald's guest, the controversial British polemicist Milo Yiannopoulos. The mayor cited concerns about the availability of the New York City Police Department (NYPD) to perform security duties at NYU during the same time they would be needed to police New York's Village Halloween Parade.[4] NYU complied with the mayor's request.[5]

Springtime for Snowflakes

In 2018, the New English Review Press published Rectenwald's memoir, Springtime for Snowflakes: Social Justice and Its Postmodern Parentage. Rectenwald recounts his academic career and his intellectual evolution. He critiques the contemporary social justice culture in the academy, arguing that it is rooted in socialist and postmodernist thought and describing its constituent concepts such as deconstruction, belief in toxic masculinity, social constructivism, and radical constructivism. Rectenwald concludes that such ideology has promoted an authoritarian and dogmatic culture in parts of the academy.[6][7]


Bibliography

  • The Eros of the Baby Boom Eras (1991)
  • The Thief and Other Stories. (2013) self-published
  • Breach: Collected Poems (2013) self-published
  • Academic Writing, Real World Topics (2015)
  • Global Secularisms in a Post-Secular Age (2015)
  • Nineteenth-Century British Secularism: Science, Religion and Literature (2016).
  • Academic Writing, Real World Topics (2016).
  • Springtime for Snowflakes: Social Justice and Its Postmodern Parentage (2018).
  • Google Archipelago: The Digital Gulag and the Simulation of Freedom(2019).
  • Beyond Woke (2020)

External links

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References