In Pursuit of Knowledge: Scholars, Status, and Academic Culture

by Deborah L. Rhode

Although academics have never lacked for critics, publications on the profession tend to be either popularized polemics, which are engaging but misleading, or scholarly analyses, which are intellectually responsible but of little interest to anyone but specialists. In Pursuit of Knowledge offers an a unique portrait of academic life that should appeal to both experts and a general audience. Drawing on a wide range of disciplines, including higher education, history, law, sociology, economics, and literature, the book focuses on the ways in which the pursuit of status has undermined the pursuit of knowledge. Deborah Rhode argues that both individual scholars and institutions in higher education are caught in an arms race of reputation. The result has been to skew priorities in scholarship, erode commitments to teaching, compromise efforts of public intellectuals, and impede effectiveness in administration. The book offers several solutions to counter these pervasive problems in our research institutions. Rhode makes a case for increasing accountability and realigning reward systems. She argues that what is needed is a greater sense of responsibility among universities and their faculties to narrow the gap between academic ideals and practices. In Pursuit of Knowledge is meticulously researched and elegantly written. It is also exceptionally entertaining in its use of quotations culled from over a hundred academic novels, including works by Kingsley Amis, Saul Bellow, David Lodge, and C.P. Snow.(For example, from P.G. Wodehouse's The Girl in Blue , "The Agee womantold us for three quarters of an hourhow she came to write her beastly book, when a simple apology was all that was required.") The result is a highly readable but also deeply reflective analysis of the academic profession.

Genres: Education

249 pages, Hardcover

First published September 25, 2006

Reviews

[Minh Nhật · Rating 2 out of 5]

đầu năm đọc trúng cuốn sách dở quá T^T. may là mình ko mua, mà thực ra trước đọc giới thiệu thấy chủ đề hay quá mà tìm mua hoài ko được phải xin người khác tặng lại.

tóm lại là tác giả muốn phê phán đời sống văn hóa học thuật Mỹ là quá chạy theo xuất bản mà bỏ rơi vai trò giáo dục và xu hướng càng ngày càng chuyên môn hóa càng làm cho học thuật xa rời đời sống. nhưng cũng có một xu hướng ngược lại là cũng bị thương mại hóa làm cho học thuật mất đi ý nghĩa lớn lao của nó mà trở thành một công cụ của giới tư bản.

cái dở đáng nói nhất là tác giả dùng quá nhiều số liệu, quá nhiều bằng chứng, chú thích mỗi chương tới cả trăm cái làm cho cuốn sách trở thành một tác phẩm thứ cấp và vô cùng rời rạc. mỉa mai nhất thì cuốn sách này đúng là bằng chứng tiêu biểu nhất cho cái văn hóa học thuật mà nó phê phán.

p/s tác giả gs luật của stanford

[Kristine · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to love this book, and for the first chapter or so I did: an attempt to provide an unbiased, constructive critique of academia in US public life. Pretty soon the staggering number of footnotes were just too ironic, given the detailed criticism of over-footnoted prose as one of the weaknesses of academic writing. Then the clumsy sentences started to pile up, and then the "solutions" offered to the problems turned facile and unrealistic. This was a big topic to take on, and the research involved in producing the work is impressive, but I deeply regret I bought it in hardback.