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

Rhode, Deborah L.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0804755345 ISBN 13: 9780804755344

Verlag: Stanford University Press, 2006

Inhaltsangabe

In Pursuit of Knowledge offers a unique portrait of the pursuit of status in academic life, combining meticulous research with elegant and entertaining prose.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Deborah L. Rhode is Ernest W. McFarland Professor of Law, and Director of the Keck Center on Legal Ethics and the Legal Profession at the Stanford Law School. She has written and edited fifteen previous books, including Pro Bono in Principle and in Practice: Public Service and the Professions (Stanford University Press, 2005).

Von der hinteren Coverseite

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 alternative: 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 woman told us for three quarters of an hour how 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.

Aus dem Klappentext

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 alternative: 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 woman told us for three quarters of an hour how 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.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Stanford University Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2006
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0804755345
• ISBN 13: 9780804755344
• Einband: Tapa dura
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 250
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar