Join us for Heterodox Academy’s Colloquium Series, a virtual seminar series designed to highlight the scholarship and thought leadership emerging from our community.

This colloquium will feature Hrishikesh Joshi, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona, exploring the relationship between academic authority and democratic accountability.

Democracy and the Academy

The professoriate wields enormous power over society in the long run. They shape the future elites, especially because a university degree is essential for social advancement. But the academy is not democratically accountable: who is hired and what is taught is determined by the professoriate, not the public. What’s more, the academy is politically homogenous. Do universities then undermine democratic legitimacy? In other words, do we live in a true democracy, given the unchecked power of the professoriate? This talk will explore the uneasy relationship between democratic ideals and the modern university system as it stands.

This colloquium, taking place on Tuesday, November 10, 2026 from 3:00-4:00 PM ET, will give you the chance to hear Hrishikesh Joshi weigh whether the modern university system undermines democratic legitimacy. HxA members can register to attend and ask questions during the live Q&A. 

Non-members can watch the livestream by subscribing to HxA’s YouTube channel.

About the speaker

Hrishikesh Joshi is an Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Arizona. He is also a core faculty member at the Center for the Philosophy of Freedom. Previously, he worked at Bowling Green State University, and prior to that was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His research focuses on normative issues at the intersection of philosophy, politics, and economics (PPE). Recently, his focus has been on epistemological questions in this area. He also works on meta-ethics and ethical theory. He completed his Ph.D. at Princeton under the supervision of Gideon Rosen, Michael Smith, and Philip Pettit.