On Academic Freedom, Security and Flattery

Your Scholarly Digest 16th October, 2025

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Hi Scholar,

One of our members in Scholar Square shared the following in our community dedicated to research, scholarship, and learning, and we wanted to share it with you: 

It succinctly captures the communal and craft-like spirit that animates why and how we do scholarship. We can hardly “have”— that is, buy or acquire — scholarship for ourselves, as though attaining rights to it as property. Yet this is precisely what is being made possible by modern economic and financial instruments, which increasingly render scholarship a transaction in the market. Is it any surprise, then, that we are also seeing a diminishing appreciation for the qualities of scholarship: the very qualities of knowledge and of the environment in which the scholar operates? 

We will leave that with you to ponder upon.

In today’s Digest, we have: 

  • Brain Food: On the Organisation of Academic Freedom

  • Current Affairs: Knowledge is (Geopolitical) Power

  • Resource: How Scholars Work

  • Keeping it Real: Flattery Will Get You Everywhere

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