“Culture Wars” in Us and Canadian Universities

Introduction. This article analyzes the phenomenon of culture wars using events reflecting sociocultural conflict at universities in the United States and Canada over the course of half a century. It examines the evolution of the term “culture wars” in its theoretical and methodological implications. It outlines the main directions and trends in the contemporary historiography of “culture wars” and general issues concerning the evolution of higher education in the face of global challenges. The relationship between the student movement of the 1960s–1990s and the current crisis of neoliberal and postmodernist concepts of university evolution in the United States and Canada is demonstrated. Methods and materials. Systems-structural approach. Historical-comparative method. Content analysis. Social constructivism. Materials from university archives in the USA and Canada. Historical research and scholarly articles by historians, political scientists, and cultural scholars from the USSR/Russia, USA, Canada, and Great Britain. Periodical press materials. Analysis. This paper utilizes a systems-structural approach to identify a range of theoretical and methodological issues related to the phenomenon of “culture wars” in its historical dynamics. This paper analyzes the causes of the sociocultural crisis in Western society in general and in universities in the USA and Canada in particular, amidst the growing confrontation between neoliberal and globalist values, which poses a serious threat to academic freedom and the development prospects of the modern university in the near future. Result. Using the example of the “Ryerson case,” the extent of the influence of the ideology of historical revisionism and relativism emanating from the United States on events in Canada is demonstrated. The article concludes that the further introduction of such “culture war” markers as deplatforming, political correctness, the rejection of traditional cultural values, and historical revisionism could lead to a distortion of the concept of the “university mission” as a vital intellectual resource and a platform for preserving democratic principles in society as a whole.

Historiography · Ideology · Paradigm shift · Phenomenon · Politics · Relativism · Sociocultural evolution · Academic Freedom and Politics · Higher Education Governance and Development · University Challenges and Reforms

• Dark Academia

  Peter Fleming•Dark Academia•2021

  Add to list

• The University in Ruins

  Bill Readings•University in Ruins•1997

  Add to list