Call for Proposals: Intellectual Diversity in Higher Education

Scholars at Risk documents nearly four hundred attacks on the global academic community, including extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, and imprisonment to silence scholars for political dissent in teaching or research. In multiple contexts, legislation threatens faculty with dismissal for teaching specific concepts, and institutional autonomy has been undercut through government-aligned control.

One of the political strategies in defending such actions is to argue that they are necessary to enhance intellectual or viewpoint diversity. The meaning of intellectual diversity differs across contexts. From one vantage point, it is the inclusion of voices and epistemologies of historically marginalized people that respects their lived experiences. From another vantage point, it addresses a perceived ideological imbalance.

This volume seeks to provide a more objective understanding of the history and meaning of intellectual diversity and the political battles that now ensue around it. Contributors are tasked with moving beyond ideological divides to critically examine the promises and limitations of intellectual diversity, advance normative frameworks of value, conduct empirical analyses, and provide comparative sociopolitical perspectives.

The volume is organised into three sections:

Social, historical, and conceptual underpinnings of intellectual diversity
Conditioning intellectual diversity
The politics of intellectual diversity

Contributions may address questions concerning academic freedom, disciplinarity, epistemic considerations, institutional structures, and higher education’s governance practices, as well as the threats to intellectual diversity both internal and external to academia.

Submitting a Proposal
Potential contributors are asked to develop an abstract or short proposal of 500–750 words, drawing on the guiding questions as points of departure. Proposals should include a cover page with name, affiliation, email, and discipline, and clearly identify the section and question(s) addressed.

Submit proposals via email (Word document) to John Petrovic at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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Timeline

Proposals due: May 1, 2026
Acceptance/rejection: May 15, 2026
Manuscripts due: September 15, 2026
Reviews returned: November 15, 2026
Revised manuscripts due: December 15, 2026
Publication: Summer 2027

Final manuscripts will be 6,000–7,000 words, including references and notes, following APA style.