Michael Rectenwald
Speaking at the Mises Institute, 2019
Born (1959-01-29) January 29, 1959
Occupations
  • Academic
  • author
  • political activist
Political partyLibertarian
Academic background
EducationUniversity of Pittsburgh (BA)
Case Western Reserve University (BA)
Carnegie Mellon University (PhD)
Academic work
Institutions
Main interestsSecularism

Michael D. Rectenwald (born January 29, 1959) is an American author and former professor. Although he has written about 19th-century British secularism, he may be most known as a critic of the contemporary social justice movement.

Early life and education

Rectenwald's 2018 memoir states that he is the seventh of nine children.[1]

Rectenwald is a 1977 graduate of North Catholic High School in the Troy Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His undergraduate studies in English included an apprenticeship with Beat Generation poet Allen Ginsberg at Naropa University (formerly Naropa Institute) during the 1979–80 school year.[2] 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.[3] In 2004, Carnegie Mellon University conferred upon Rectenwald a Ph.D. in literary and cultural studies. In the span of one year, he published three books.[4]

Career

Rectenwald was a Professor of Liberal and Global Liberal Studies at New York University for more than ten years before retiring in January 2019.[5]

On September 12, 2016, Rectenwald created the anonymous Twitter account @antipcnyuprof, 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; he subsequently gave an interview revealing himself as the faculty member behind the account.[6]

In a November 3, 2016 Washington Post op-ed, Rectenwald claimed that two days after the student interview, he was summoned by NYU Liberal Studies Dean Fred Schwarzbach and was "strongly encouraged to take a paid leave of absence."[7] Schwarzbach denied Rectenwald's claims and posted all email correspondence between the two from November 1 through November 11, which showed Rectenwald requesting the leave himself.[8] Rectenwald went on paid leave in September 2016. In January 2018, he sued NYU and four of its professors for defamation "after they sent accurate emails accusing him of behavior including sexism, bullying, drug use, abusing his position as chair of a hiring committee, and physical and sexual harassment". The case was dismissed with prejudice against Rectenwald. In October 2018, Rectenwald invited Milo Yiannopoulos to speak in one of his classes. Yiannopoulos's visit was postponed for reasons of safety.[5]

Research contributions

Rectenwald has written on the origins of the movement called secularism, which was founded in London in 1851 by George Jacob Holyoake.[9] In "Secularism and the cultures of nineteenth-century scientific naturalism," Rectenwald argued that Holyoake's secularism "represents an important early stage of scientific naturalism".[10] 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.[11] 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."[12]

Critique of social justice and leftism in academia

In 2018, the conservative New English Review Press published Rectenwald's memoir, Springtime for Snowflakes: Social Justice and Its Postmodern Parentage. In the memoir, Rectenwald critiques the contemporary social justice culture in academia, arguing that it has promoted an authoritarian and dogmatic culture in parts of academia.[13][14]

2024 presidential campaign

In 2023, Rectenwald filed to run for president of the United States seeking the Libertarian presidential nomination in the 2024 U.S. presidential election.[15]

Works

Books

  • Rectenwald, Michael, and Lisa Carl. Academic Writing, Real World Topics. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Press (May 28, 2015).
  • Rectenwald, Michael, Rochelle Almeida and George Levine, eds. Global Secularisms in a Post-Secular Age. Boston: De Gruyter (September 25, 2015).
  • Nineteenth-Century British Secularism: Science, Religion and Literature. Houndsmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK; New York: Palgrave Macmillan (2016).
  • Rectenwald, Michael and Lisa Carl. Academic Writing, Real World Topics. (Concise Edition). Peterborough, Ont: Broadview Press (July 20, 2016).
  • Springtime for Snowflakes: Social Justice and Its Postmodern Parentage. Nashville. TN; London, UK: New English Review Press (2018).
  • Google Archipelago: The Digital Gulag and the Simulation of Freedom. Nashville, TN; London, UK: New English Review Press. (September 30, 2019).
  • Rectenwald, Michael. Beyond Woke. New English Review Press. (May 18, 2020)
  • Thought Criminal. New English Review Press. (December 1, 2020)
  • The Great Reset. World Encounter Institute/New English Review Press (January 10, 2023)

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

  1. ↑ Springtime for Snowflakes, (Nashville, TN: New English Review Press), 31
  2. ↑ "A Dangerous Minds exclusive: Previously unpublished interview with Allen Ginsberg". DangerousMinds. March 2, 2015. Retrieved February 18, 2019.
  3. ↑ "Interview with Michael Rectenwald ('97) – Department of English". Retrieved February 18, 2019.
  4. ↑ "Three Books, One Year - Department of English - Carnegie Mellon University". Carnegie Mellon University. September 28, 2015. Retrieved February 18, 2019.
  5. 1 2 Kvetenadze, Téa (April 18, 2020). ""Anti-PC" Liberal Studies Professor Michael Rectenwald Has Retired". Medium. Retrieved July 24, 2022.
  6. ↑ Siu, Diamond (October 24, 2016). "Q&A with a Deplorable NYU Professor". Washington Square News.
  7. ↑ Rectenwald, Michael (November 3, 2016). "Here's what happened when I challenged the PC campus culture at NYU". The Washington Post. Retrieved February 27, 2019.
  8. ↑ "UPDATE 11/11: Email Correspondence between Professor Michael Rectenwald and Dean Fred Schwarzbach". New York University. November 11, 2016.
  9. ↑ 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.
  10. ↑ Rectenwald, Michael (June 2013). "Secularism and the cultures of nineteenth-century scientific naturalism". The British Journal for the History of Science. 46 (2): 231–254. doi:10.1017/S0007087412000738. ISSN 0007-0874. S2CID 145566942.
  11. ↑ Rectenwald, Michael. (2016). Nineteenth-Century British Secularism: Science, Religion and Literature. Houndsmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 106.
  12. ↑ 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.
  13. ↑ Messenger, Stephen (July 30, 2018). "Springtime for Snowflakes: "Social Justice" and Its Postmodern Parentage: A Review". Areo. Retrieved February 21, 2019.
  14. ↑ Vigo, Julian (August 2, 2018). "Springtime for Snowflakes: An NYU Professor Takes On Academia's "Social Justice Warriors"". Public Discourse. Princeton, New Jersey. Retrieved February 21, 2019.
  15. ↑ Philips, Aleks (September 9, 2023). "Libertarians Sense Golden Opportunity to Make 2024 Breakthrough". Newsweek. Retrieved September 14, 2023.
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