Edward Dutton – författare

How does university turn students into who they become? Why are student evangelicals such a significant and controversial force at so many universities? In many countries, university has become the main Rite of Passage between the child and adult worlds. University can be enjoyable and fascinating but also life-changing and traumatic. And at the exact time when a student's identity is the most challenged and uncertain, student evangelical groups are highly organised on many university campuses to offer students a powerful identity so that the world makes sense once again. For some, these groups will protect them from the university's assault on their faith. For others, they will challenge and even change who they are. Meeting Jesus at University explores universities in six countries. Drawing upon detailed fieldwork, it examines the largest student evangelical group at each university in order to understand in depth the relationship between the student evangelical group and the university which it aims to convert. Meeting Jesus at University offers an original contribution to the discussion of Rites of Passage, examining what is experienced at university and how university breaks down and remoulds young people. It explores why student evangelicals are so active, particularly at Britain and America's most prestigious and identity-challenging institutions meaning that students at these places are the most likely to find themselves meeting Jesus at university.

How does university turn students into who they become? Why are student evangelicals such a significant and controversial force at so many universities? In many countries, university has become the main Rite of Passage between the child and adult worlds. University can be enjoyable and fascinating but also life-changing and traumatic. And at the exact time when a student's identity is the most challenged and uncertain, student evangelical groups are highly organised on many university campuses to offer students a powerful identity so that the world makes sense once again. For some, these groups will protect them from the university's assault on their faith. For others, they will challenge and even change who they are. Meeting Jesus at University explores universities in six countries. Drawing upon detailed fieldwork, it examines the largest student evangelical group at each university in order to understand in depth the relationship between the student evangelical group and the university which it aims to convert. Meeting Jesus at University offers an original contribution to the discussion of Rites of Passage, examining what is experienced at university and how university breaks down and remoulds young people. It explores why student evangelicals are so active, particularly at Britain and America's most prestigious and identity-challenging institutions meaning that students at these places are the most likely to find themselves meeting Jesus at university.

In 2007, the Watson Affair – the worldwide character assassination and exclusion from public life of Dr. James Watson, the brilliant, Nobel Prize-winning scientist co-credited with the discovery of DNA – shocked the global public in an early episode of what would come to be called "cancel culture." Watson was as an early and very public victim of incipient wokeism: a warning to others who might be tempted to dissent from favored ideologies of expression and behavior. With the Watson Affair, Western society had changed to the point of inversion; from being broadly supportive of genius, and providing protected niches for those of great accomplishment, to exactly the opposite – a censorious surveillance culture where even minor missteps could result in personal and professional ruin. Genius Under House Arrest explores how this dramatic shift occurred and argues that not only was every "controversial" remark of Watson's empirically accurate, but that geniuses – with Watson as the example – are a package deal: extreme creative ability as a consequence of sometimes difficult personalities, with effects ranging across social, ideological, and professional life. As society has begun to realize, nothing less than the West's culture of merit and achievement is at stake.

In 2007, the Watson Affair – the worldwide character assassination and exclusion from public life of Dr. James Watson, the brilliant, Nobel Prize-winning scientist co-credited with the discovery of DNA – shocked the global public in an early episode of what would come to be called “cancel culture.” Watson was as an early and very public victim of incipient wokeism: a warning to others who might be tempted to dissent from favored ideologies of expression and behavior. With the Watson Affair, Western society had changed to the point of inversion; from being broadly supportive of genius, and providing protected niches for those of great accomplishment, to exactly the opposite – a censorious surveillance culture where even minor missteps could result in personal and professional ruin. Genius Under House Arrest explores how this dramatic shift occurred and argues that not only was every “controversial” remark of Watson’s empirically accurate, but that geniuses – with Watson as the example – are a package deal: extreme creative ability as a consequence of sometimes difficult personalities, with effects ranging across social, ideological, and professional life. As society has begun to realize, nothing less than the West’s culture of merit and achievement is at stake.