Among the most common challenges on college campuses today is figuring out how to navigate our politically charged culture and engage productively with opposing viewpoints. In Try to Love the Questions: From Debate to Dialogue in Classrooms and Life, Lara Schwartz introduces the fundamental principles of free expression, academic freedom, and academic dialogue, showing how open expression is the engine of social progress, scholarship, and inclusion. She sheds light on the rules and norms that govern campus discourse鈥攕uch as the First Amendment, campus expression policies, and academic standards鈥攁nd encourages students to adopt a mindset of inquiry that embraces uncertainty and a love of questions.
Empowering students, scholars, and instructors to listen generously, explore questions with integrity, and communicate to be understood, Try to Love the Questions includes writing exercises and discussion questions in every chapter, making it an indispensable resource for anyone interested in practicing good-faith dialogue.
Content note: The 鈥渢est鈥� Dr. Gessler references is a quiz on contraception, and the prevention and transmission of several different diseases; the prizes offered were candy bars.
Lara Hope Schwartz teaches in the School of Public Affairs at American University, where she is founding director of the Project on Civic Dialogue (formerly the Project on Civil Discourse). A lawyer and former civil rights strategist, she is the author (with Andrea Malkin Brenner) of How to College: What to Know before You Go (and When You鈥檙e There).
Christina Gessler is a full-time writing coach, grad student coach, and developmental editor. She is the producer and show host of the Academic Life podcast.