“Conversation: Student Self-Authorship and the Goals of Higher Education”

This edited transcript of a roundtable “fishbowl” conversation at a session of the 2018 national conference of the American Academy of Religion brings three teaching scholars together around a shared reading of Jane Fried's book, Education, Fishbowls, and Rabbit Holes: Rethinking Teaching and Liberal Education for an Interconnected World (Stylus, 2016). Fried's concept of student “self‐authorship” quickly emerges as the dominant theme of the conversation, providing fresh perspectives on the purposes and goals of an academic classroom and the place of the study of religion within the liberal arts curriculum.