Academia and the Public Sphere

Initiative on Academia & the Public Sphere

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SSRC Program Links

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This growing section maps studies of the changing relations between academia and the public sphere. Literature on the changing relation between individual academic disciplines/fields and the public sphere is listed in sub-sections at the top, including Economics, History, Literature & Literary Studies, Media & Communication Studies, Philosophy, Political Science, International Affairs, Sociology, Science & Technology. Studies by historians of academic disciplines and fields are included if they speak to the external relationship of those disciplines to the public sphere.

Furthermore, this section covers inquiries of the changed importance of public intellectuals, studies of the rise of professionalization and the decoupling of expertise from advocacy, general literature on the changing role of academia in the elite public policy discourse, studies of the rise of competing expertise outside academia such as in think tanks, inquiries of academic language and writing for the general public, studies of academic freedom, and literature on the public mission of the university in general, including the movement for open education and Open Educational Resources (OER). Finally, studies on academics / intellectuals as the social basis of democratization or de-democratization are compiled at the bottom of this section and highlight academia’s role in promoting or impeding a democratic public sphere. For the democratic theoretical relationship between experts and laypeople and studies of the expertocracy thesis, see the separate section here.


Individual Academic Disciplines/Fields and the Public Sphere

Economics

  • Backhouse, Roger E. 2010. The Puzzle of Modern Economics: Science or Ideology? Cambridge (UK): Cambridge University Press.
  • Bernstein, Michael A. 2001. A Perilous Progress: Economists and Public Purpose in Twentieth-Century America. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press.
  • —. 2004. “The Pitfalls of Mainstream Economic Reasoning (and Teaching).” Pp. 33-40 in A Guide to What’s Wrong with Economics, edited by Fullbrook, Edward. New York: Routledge.
  • —. 2005. “Reply to Critics.” The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought 12:142-146.
  • —. 2008. “A Brief History of the American Economic Association.” American Journal of Economics and Sociology 67:1007-1023.
  • Chang, Ha-Joon. 2011. “Good Economic Policy Does Not Require Good Economists.” Pp. 242-251 in 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism. New York: Bloomsbury Press.
  • Coats, Alfred W., The Sociology and Professionalization of Economics, 2 Vols., New York 1993: Routledge.
  • Coats, Alfred W., ed. 1996. The post-1945 Internationalization of Economics. Volume 28 of History of Political Economy, Annual supplement. Durham (NC): Duke University Press.
  • Colander, David. 2005. “Economics as an Ideologically Challenged Science.” Revue de Philosophie Economique 11:9–30.
  • —. 2007. The Making of an Economist, Redux. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press.
  • —. 2009. “Moving Beyond the Rhetoric of Pluralism: Suggestions for an ‘Inside-the-Mainstream’ Heterodoxy.” Middlebury College Working Paper Series 0915, Middlebury (VT).
  • —. 2009. “How Economists Got It Wrong: A Nuanced Account.” Middlebury College Working Paper Series 0915, Middlebury (VT).
  • DeLong, Bradford J. 2011. “Economics in Crisis.” Project Syndicate, April 29. Online
  • Eichengreen, Barry. 2009. “The Last Temptation of Risk.” The National Interest, May-June Issue. Online
  • Foley, Duncan K. 1975. “Problems vs. Conflicts: Economic Theory and Ideology.” The American Economic Review 65:231-236.
  • —. 1989. “Notes on Ideology and Methodology.” Unpublished paper, New York.
  • —. 2004. “Rationality and Ideology in Economics.” Social Research 71:329–342.
  • —. 2006. Adam’s Fallacy: A Guide to Economic Theology. New Haven (CT): Harvard University Press.
  • —. 2006. “The Theology of Economics: An Interview.” Challenge 49:103-112.
  • Galbraith, James K. 2009. “Who Are These Economists, Anyway?” Thought & Action, Fall Issue, Pp. 85-97. Online
  • Heilbroner, Robert L. 1953. The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times And Ideas Of The Great Economic Thinkers. New York: Simon & Schuster.
  • —. 1970. “On the Limited ‘Relevance’ of Economics.” The Public Interest, No. 21, Fall, Pp. 80-93. Online
  • —. 1999. “The End of the Worldly Philosophy? [New final chapter of the 1999 edition].” Pp. 311-321 in The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times And Ideas Of The Great Economic Thinkers [1953]. Newly Revised 7th Edition. New York: Simon & Schuster.
  • Hodgson, Geoffrey M. 2009. “The Great Crash of 2008 and the Reform of Economics.” Cambridge Journal of Economics 33:1205–1221.
  • —. 2011. “The Eclipse of the Uncertainty Concept in Mainstream Economics.” Journal of Economic Issues 45:159-175.
  • —. 2011. “Sickonomics: Diagnoses and Remedies.” Review of Social Economy 69:357-376
  • Kay, John. 2011. The Map is Not the Territory: An Essay on the State of Economics. Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET): New York. Online
  • Khurana, Rakesh. 2007. From Higher Aims to Hired Hands: The Social Transformation of American Business Schools and the Unfulfilled Promise of Management as a Profession. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press.
  • —. 2011. “Why Are There Business Schools in Universities?” Public Sphere Forum. Essay Series on Academia & the Public Sphere.
  • Krugman, Paul. 2009. “How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?” New York Times Magazine. September 2. Online
  • —. 2011. “The Profession and the Crisis.” Presidential Address, Eastern Economic Association. Eastern Economic Journal 37:307–312.
  • —. 2012. “Economics in the Crisis.” NYTimes.com. March 5 (Talk at the University of Lisbon on February 27). Online
  • Mirowski, Philip. 2010. “The Great Mortification: Economists’ Responses to the Crisis of 2007– (and counting).” The Hedgehog Review 12:28-41. Online
  • —. 2010. “Inherent Vice: Minsky, Markomata, and the Tendency of Markets to Undermine Themselves.” Journal of Institutional Economics 6:415-443.
  • Reinert, Erik S. 2000. “Full Circle: Economics from Scholasticism through Innovation and back into Mathematical Scholasticism: Reflections on a 1769 Prize Essay: ‘Why is it that economics so far has gained so few advantages from physics and mathematics?’” Journal of Economic Studies 27:364-376.
  • —. 2009. “The Terrible Simplifiers: Common Origins of Financial Crises and Persistent Poverty in Economic Theory and the new ‘1848 Moment’,” United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), Working Paper No. 88. New York. Online
  • —. 2012. “Economics and the Public Sphere: The Rise of Esoteric Knowledge, Refeudalization, Crisis and Renewal.” Public Sphere Forum. Essay Series on Academia & the Public Sphere.
  • Rodrik, Dani. 2009. “Blame the Economists, Not Economics.” Project Syndicate. March 11. Online
  • Shiller, Robert J. 2009. “Reinventing Economics.” Project Syndicate. September 14. Online
  • —. 2011. “A People’s Economics.” Project Syndicate. January 20. Online
  • Shiller, Robert J., and Virginia M. Shiller. 2011. “Economists as Worldly Philosophers.” Cowles Foundation Discussion Paper No. 1788, Yale University, New Haven (CT), January 17. Online Also published in American Economic Review 101:171–175, No. 3, 2011.
  • Stiglitz, Joseph. 2010. “Reforming Economics.” Pp. 238-274 in Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy. New York: Norton.
  • Thoma, Mark. 2011. “A Great Divide Holds Back the Relevance of Economists.” Reuters. July 26. Online
  • —. 2011. “New Forms of Communication and the Public Mission of Economics: Overcoming the Great Disconnect.” Public Sphere Forum. Essay Series on Academia & the Public Sphere.


History

  • Bender, Thomas. 1989. “Public Culture: Inclusion and Synthesis in American History.” Pp. 188-202 in Historical Literacy: The Case for History in American Education, edited by Gagnon, Paul. New York: Macmillan.
  • —. 1993. “The Historian and Public Life: Charles A. Beard and the City.” Pp. 91-105 in Intellect and Public Life: Essays on the Social History of Academic Intellectuals in the United States. Baltimore (MD): The Johns Hopkins University Press.
  • —. 2011. “Historians in Public.” Public Sphere Forum. Essay Series on Academia & the Public Sphere.
  • —. 2012. “What’s Been Lost in History.” Chronicle of Higher Education, February 12. Online
  • —. forthcoming. “The Historian as Public Moralist: The Case of Christopher Lasch.” Modern Intellectual History.
  • Bender, Thomas, Philip M. Katz, and Colin Palmer. 2004. The Education of Historians for the Twenty-first Century. Urbana (IL): University of Illinois Press.
  • Greenberg, David. 2005. “That Barnes & Noble Dream. Academics Historians vs. Popularizers.” Slate Magazine, May 17-18. Online
  • Hartog, François, and Jacques Revel. 2002. “Historians and the Present Conjuncture.” Pp. 1-12 in Political Uses of the Past: The Recent Mediterranean Experience, edited by Revel, Jacques, and Giovanni Levi. London: Cass.
  • Kean, Hilda, and Paul Ashton. 2009. “Introduction: People and Their Pasts and Public History Today.” Pp. 1-20 in People and Their Pasts: Public History Today, edited by Kean, Hilda, and Paul Ashton. Basingstoke (Hampshire): Palgrave.
  • Lowenthal, David. 1998. “The Purpose and Practice of History.” Pp. 105-126 in The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History. New York: Cambridge University Press.
  • Novick, Peter. 1988. “The Professionalization Project.” Pp. 47-60 in That Noble Dream: The ‘Objectivity Question’ and the American Historical Profession. Cambridge (UK): Cambridge University Press.
  • Pavone, Claudio. 2002. “The Two Levels of Public Use of the Past.” Pp. 74-86 in Political Uses of the Past: The Recent Mediterranean Experience, edited by Revel, Jacques, and Giovanni Levi. London: Cass.
  • Revel, Jacques. 2012. “Public Uses of History: Expectations and Ambiguities.” Public Sphere Forum. Essay Series on Academia & the Public Sphere.
  • Revel, Jacques, and Giovanni Levi, eds. 2002. Political Uses of the Past: The Recent Mediterranean Experience. London: Cass.
  • Soffer, Reba. 2009. History, Historians, and Conservatism in Britain and America: From the Great War to Thatcher and Reagan. New York: Oxford University Press. Examining conservative historians in Great Britain and the United States who were also successful public intellectuals.
  • Stevens, Mary. 2010. “Public Policy and the Public Historian: The Changing Place of Historians in Public Life in France and the UK.” The Public Historian 32:120-138.
  • Tyrrell, Ian R. 2005. Historians in Public: The Practice of American History, 1890-1970. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  • Working Group on Evaluating Public History Scholarship (AHA, NCPH, OAH). 2010. Tenure, Promotion, and the Publicly Engaged Academic Historian. A Report. Online. See also the supporting white paper.


Literature and Literary Studies

  • Carey, John. 1992. The Intellectuals and the Masses: Pride and Prejudice Among the Literary Intelligentsia, 1880-1939. London: Faber.
  • Collini, Stefan. 2006. Absent Minds: Intellectuals in Britain. Oxford (UK): Oxford University Press.
  • —. 2008. Common Reading: Critics, Historians, Publics. Oxford (UK): Oxford University Press.
  • Dickstein, Morris. 1992. Double Agent: The Critic and Society. New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Graff, Gerald, and Reginald Gibbons, eds. 1985. Criticism in the University. Evanston (IL): Northwestern University Press.
  • Said, Edward. 2002. “The Public Role of Writers and Intellectuals.” Pp. 19-39 in The Public Intellectual, edited by Small, Helen. Malden (MA)/Oxford (UK): Blackwell.


Media & Communication Studies

  • Braman, Sandra, ed. 2003. Communication Researchers and Policy-Making. Cambridge (MA): MIT Press.
  • Karaganis, Joe. 2009. “Cultures of Collaboration in Media Research.” A Report, Social Science Research Council (SSRC), available at SSRN Online
  • Rosen, Jay. 1994. “Making Things More Public: On the Political Responsibility of the Media Intellectual.” Critical Studies in Mass Communication 11:363-388.
  • —. 1999. “In Search of a Different Story: Journalists, Scholars, and the Public Square.” Pp. 56-82 in What Are Journalists For? New Haven (CT): Yale University Press.
  • Zelizer, Barbie. 2011. “Journalism in the Service of Communication.” Journal of Communication 61:1-21.


Philosophy

  • Bernstein, Richard J. 1992. “The Resurgence of Pragmatism.” Social Research 59:813-840.
  • Chomsky, Noam. 1968. “Philosophers and Public Philosophy.” Ethics 79:1-9. Online
  • —. 1996. “Writers and Intellectual Responsibility.” Pp. 55-69 in Powers and Prospects: Reflections on Human Nature and the Social Order. Boston: South End Press.
  • —.  2011. “The Responsibility of Intellectuals, Redux: Using Privilege to Challenge the State.” Boston Review, September/October Issue. Online See also: Chomsky, Noam. 1967. “The Responsibility of Intellectuals.” New York Review of Books, February 23. Online
  • Gellner, Ernest. 1973. “Reflections on Philosophy, especially in America.” Worldview 16:49-53. Reprint: Gellner, Ernest. 1974. “Reflections on Philosophy, especially in America.” [1973] Pp. 39-46 in The Devil in Modern Philosophy. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
  • Habermas, Jürgen. 2003. “The Relationship between Theory and Practice Revisited.” Pp. 277-292 in Truth and Justification. Cambridge (MA): MIT Press.
  • —. 2010. “An Avantgardistic Instinct for Relevances: Intellectuals and Their Public.” Public Sphere Forum. Essay Series on Academia & the Public Sphere. Excerpt from Habermas, Jürgen. 2009. “An Avantgardistic Instinct for Relevances: The Role of the Intellectual and the European Cause.” Pp. 49-58 in Europe: The Faltering Project. Cambridge (UK): Polity Press.
  • Henningson, Manfred. 2002. “The Political Philosopher in the Public Sphere.” Pp. 91-106 in Public Philosophy and Political Science: Crisis and Reflection, edited by Statham, E. Robert. Lanham (MD): Lexington Books.
  • Honneth, Axel. 2000. “The Possibility of a Disclosing Critique of Society: The Dialectic of Enlightenment in Light of Current Debates in Social Criticism.” Constellations 7:116–127. Reprint: Honneth, Axel. 2007. “The Possibility of a Disclosing Critique of Society: The Dialectic of Enlightenment in Light of Current Debates in Social Criticism.” Pp. 49-62 in Disrespect: The Normative Foundations of Critical Theory. Cambridge (UK): Polity Press.
  • —. 2012. “Idiosyncrasy as a Tool of Knowledge: Social Criticism in the Age of the Normalized Intellectual.” Public Sphere Forum. Essay Series on Academia & the Public Sphere. Online Republication of Honneth, Axel. 2009. “Idiosyncrasy as a Tool of Knowledge: Social Criticism in the Age of the Normalized Intellectual.” Pp. 179-192 in Pathologies of Reason: On the Legacy of Critical Theory. New York: Columbia University Press.
  • Kuklick, Bruce. 1999 [1995]. “American Philosophy and its Lost Public.” Pp. 142-152 in Pragmatism: From Progressivism to Postmodernism, edited by Hollinger, Robert, and David Depew. Westport (CT): Praeger Publishers.
  • —. 2001. “Professional Philosophy, 1912-2000.” Pp. 199-281 in A History of Philosophy in America, 1720-2000. New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Nussbaum, Martha C. 1992. “‘No Chance Matter’: Philosophy and Public Life.” Brown Classical Journal 8, Supplement. Online
  • —. 1994. The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press.
  • —. 2009. “Introduction to the 2009 Edition.” Pp. ix-xx in The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics. With a New Introduction by the Author. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press.
  • Walzer, Michael. 1985. “Interpretation and Social Criticism.” The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, Delivered at Harvard University. Cambridge (MA). Online. Print edition: Walzer, Michael. 1987. Interpretation and Social Criticism. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press.
  • —. 2002 [1988]. “Introduction: The Practice of Social Criticism.” Pp. 3-28 in The Company of Critics: Social Criticism and Political Commitment in the Twentieth Century. New York: Basic Books.
  • —. 2002 [1988]. “Conclusion: Criticism Today.” Pp. 225-240 in The Company of Critics: Social Criticism and Political Commitment in the Twentieth Century. New York: Basic Books.
  • —. 2002. “Preface to the Second Edition.” Pp. xi-xviii in The Company of Critics: Social Criticism and Political Commitment in the Twentieth Century. New York: Basic Books.
  • West, Cornel. 1989. “Prophetic Pragmatism: Cultural Criticism and Political Engagement.” Pp. 211-242 in The American Evasion of Philosophy: A Genealogy of Pragmatism. Madison (WI): University of Wisconsin Press.


Political Science

  • Anderson, Lisa. 2003. Pursuing Truth, Exercising Power: Social Science and Public Policy in the Twenty-First Century. New York: Columbia University Press.
  • —. 2011. “’Too Much Information:’ International Affairs, Political Science and the Public Sphere.” Public Sphere Forum. Essay Series on Academia & the Public Sphere.
  • Bryce, James. 1909. “The Relations of Political Science to History and to Practice.” American Political Science Review 3:1–19.
  • Farrell, Henry, and John Sides. 2010. “Building a Political Science Public Sphere with Blogs.” The Forum 8, No. 3.
  • Gunnell, John G. 1993. “Politics and Political Theory.” Pp. 82-104 in The Descent of Political Theory: The Genealogy of an American Vocation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  • —. 1993. “Exodus.” Pp. 251-278 in The Descent of Political Theory: The Genealogy of an American Vocation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Notes on the relationship between academic discourse and public discourse in the history of political science.
  • Henningson, Manfred. 2002. “The Political Philosopher in the Public Sphere.” Pp. 91-106 in Public Philosophy and Political Science: Crisis and Reflection, edited by Statham, E. Robert. Lanham (MD): Lexington Books.
  • Mead, Lawrence M. 2010. “Scholasticism in Political Science.” Perspectives on Politics 8:453-464.
  • Monroe, Kristen Renwick, ed. 2005. Perestroika!: The Raucous Rebellion in Political Science. New Haven (CT): Yale University Press.
  • Nye Jr., Joseph S. 2009. “The Question of Relevance.” Pp. 252-254 in The Future of Political Science: 100 Perspectives, edited by King, Gary, Kay Lehman Schlozman, and Norman H. Nie. New York: Routledge. See also the related article “Scholars on the Sidelines”, Washington Post, April 13, 2009.
  • Putnam, Robert D. 2003. “APSA Presidential Address: The Public Role of Political Science.” Perspectives on Politics 1:249-255.
  • Ricci, David M. 1984. The Tragedy of Political Science: Politics, Scholarship, and Democracy. New Haven (CT): Yale University Press.
  • Rothstein, Bo. 2005. “Is Political Science Producing Technically Competent Barbarians?” European Political Science 4:3-13.
  • Sigelman, Lee. 2006. “The Coevolution of American Political Science and the American Political Science Review.” American Political Science Review 100:463-479. Includes a discussion of how prescription had almost entirely vanished from APSR by the early 1960s.
  • Smith, Rogers M. 1997. “Still Blowing in the Wind: The American Quest for a Democratic, Scientific Political Science.” Daedalus 126:253-287.
  • —. 2009. “The Public Responsibilities of Political Science.” Public Sphere Forum. Essay Series on Academia & the Public Sphere.
  • —. 2011. “Political Science and the Public Sphere in the 21st Century.” Public Sphere Forum. Essay Series on Academia & the Public Sphere.
  • Trent, John E. 2011. “Should Political Science Be More Relevant?: An Empirical and Critical Analysis of the Discipline.” European Political Science 10:191-209.


International Affairs

  • Anderson, Lisa. 2003. Pursuing Truth, Exercising Power: Social Science and Public Policy in the Twenty-First Century. New York: Columbia University Press.
  • —. 2011. “’Too Much Information:’ International Affairs, Political Science and the Public Sphere.” Public Sphere Forum. Essay Series on Academia & the Public Sphere.
  • Booth, Ken. 1997. “Discussion: A Reply to Wallace.” Review of International Studies 23:371-377.
  • George, Alexander. 1993. Bridging the Gap: Theory and Practice in Foreign Policy. Washington (DC): U.S. Institute of Peace.
  • Girard, Michel, Wolf-Dieter Eberwein, and Keith Webb, eds. 1994. Theory and Practice in Foreign Policy-Making: National Perspectives on Academics and Professionals in International Relations. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
  • Hill, Christopher, and Pamela Beshoff, eds. 1994. Two Worlds of International Relations: Academics, Practitioners and the Trade in Ideas. New York: Routledge.
  • Lawson, George. 2008. “For a Public International Relations.” International Political Sociology 2:17-37.
  • Lepgold, Joseph, and Miroslav Nincic. 2001. Beyond the Ivory Tower: International Relations Theory and the Issue of Policy Relevance. New York: Columbia University Press.
  • Nye Jr., Joseph S. 2008. “International Relations: The Relevance of Theory to Practice.” Pp. 648–660 in Oxford Handbook of International Relations, edited by Reus-Smit, Christian, and Duncan Snidal. Oxford (UK): Oxford University Press.
  • —. 2009. “The Question of Relevance.” Pp. 252-254 in The Future of Political Science: 100 Perspectives, edited by King, Gary, Kay Lehman Schlozman, and Norman H. Nie. New York: Routledge. See also the related article “Scholars on the Sidelines”, Washington Post, April 13, 2009.
  • Smith, Steve. 1997. “Power and Truth: A Reply to William Wallace.” Review of International Studies 23:507-516.
  • Wallace, William. 1996. “Truth and Power, Monks and Technocrats, Theory and Practice in International Relations.” Review of International Studies 22:301–321.
  • Walt, Stephen M. 2005. “The Relationship between Theory and Policy in International Relations.” Annual Review of Political Science 8:23-48.
  • —. 2011. “International Affairs and the Public Sphere.” Public Sphere Forum. Essay Series on Academia & the Public Sphere.
  • Webb, Keith. 1994. “Academics and Professionals in International Relations: A British Perception.”in Theory and Practice in Foreign Policy-Making: National Perspectives on Academics and Professionals in International Relations, edited by Girard, Michel, Wolf-Dieter Eberwein, and Keith Webb. New York: St. Martin’s Press.


Sociology

  • Blau, Judith, and Keri Iyall Smith, eds. 2006. Public Sociologies Reader. Lanham (MD): Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
  • Burawoy, Michael. 2005. “2004 Presidential Address: For Public Sociology.” American Sociological Review 70:4-28.
  • —. 2005. “Response: Public Sociology: Populist Fad or Path to Renewal?” The British Journal of Sociology 56:417-432.
  • —. 2011. “The Return of the Repressed: Recovering the Public Face of U.S. Sociology.” Public Sphere Forum. Essay Series on Academia & the Public Sphere. Revised version of Burawoy, Michael. 2005. “The Return of the Repressed: Recovering the Public Face of U.S. Sociology, One Hundred Years On.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 600:68-85.
  • Calhoun, Craig. 2005. “The Promise of Public Sociology.” The British Journal of Sociology 56:355-363.
  • —. 2009. “Social Science for Public Knowledge.” Public Sphere Forum. Essay Series on Academia & the Public Sphere.
  • Carey, James T. 1975. Sociology and Public Affairs: The Chicago School. Beverly Hills (CA): Sage.
  • Clawson, Dan, Robert Zussman, Joya Misra, Naomi Gerstel, Randall Stokes, Douglas L. Anderton, and Michael Burawoy, eds. 2007. Public Sociology: Fifteen Eminent Sociologists Debate Politics and the Profession in the Twenty-first Century. Berkeley (CA): University of California Press.
  • Fischer, Claude S. 1990. “Entering Sociology into Public Discourse.” Pp. 50-61 in The Rhetoric of Sociology: Understood and Believed, edited by Hunter, Albert. New Brunswick (NJ): Rutgers University Press.
  • Gans, Herbert J. 1989. “Sociology in America: The Discipline and the Public: American Sociological Association, 1988 Presidential Address.” American Sociological Review 54:1-16.
  • —. 1998. “Best-Sellers by American Sociologists: An Exploratory Study.” Pp. 19-27 in Required Reading: Sociology’s Most Influential Books, edited by Clawson, Dan. Amherst (MA): University of Massachusetts Press.
  • —. 2009. “A Sociology for Public Sociology: Some Needed Disciplinary Changes for Creating Public Sociology.” Public Sphere Forum. Essay Series on Academia & the Public Sphere.
  • —. 2011. “How to be a Public Intellectual – An Interview.” The Public Intellectual, May 31. Online
  • Halliday, Terrence C., and Morris Janowitz, eds. 1992. Sociology and its Publics: The Forms and Fates of Disciplinary Organization. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
  • Jeffries, Vincent, ed. 2009. Handbook of Public Sociology. Lanham (MD): Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
  • McAdam, Doug. 2007. “From Relevance to Irrelevance: The Curious Impact of the 1960s on Public Sociology.” Pp. 411-426 in Sociology in America: A History, edited by Calhoun, Craig. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  • Nichols, Lawrence T., ed. 2007. Public Sociology: The Contemporary Debate. New Brunswick (NJ): Transaction Books.
  • Scher, Abby. 1999. “Sociologists as Journalists.” Contemporary Sociology 28:403-404.
  • Streeck, Wolfgang. 2011. “Public Sociology as a Return to Political Economy.” Public Sphere Forum. Essay Series on Academia & the Public Sphere.
  • Turner, Stephen. 2007. “Public Sociology and Democratic Theory.” Sociology 41:785-798.
  • Wright, Erik Olin. 2011. “A Call to Duty: ASA and the Wikipedia Initiative.” Footnotes 39, November. Online


Science & Technology

  • Bucc, Massimiano, and Brian Trench, eds. 2008. Handbook of Public Communication of Science and Technology. New York: Routledge.
  • Nowotny, Helga, Peter Scott, and Michael Gibbons. 2001. Re-Thinking Science: Knowledge and the Public in an Age of Uncertainty. Cambridge (UK)/Malden (MA): Polity Press.
  • Nowotny, Helga, et al. 2005. The Public Nature of Science under Assault: Politics, Markets, Science and the Law. Berlin: Springer.




The Public Mission of the University (see also here)

  • Bok, Derek. 2003. Universities in the Marketplace: The Commercialization of Higher Education. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press.
  • Calhoun, Craig. 2006. “The University and the Public Good.” Thesis Eleven 84:7-43.
  • Calhoun, Craig. 2012. “Libyan Money, Academic Missions, and Public Social Science.” Public Culture 24:9-45.
  • Calhoun, Craig, and Diana Rhoten, eds. 2011. Knowledge Matters: The Public Mission of the Research University. New York: Columbia University/SSRC Books.
  • Duderstadt, James J., and Farris W. Womack. 2004. The Future of the Public University in America: Beyond the Crossroads. Baltimore (MD): The Johns Hopkins University Press.
  • Khurana, Rakesh. 2007. From Higher Aims to Hired Hands: The Social Transformation of American Business Schools and the Unfulfilled Promise of Management as a Profession. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press.
  • Morphew, Christopher C., and Peter D. Eckel, eds. 2009. Privatizing the Public University: Perspectives from across the Academy. Baltimore (MD): The Johns Hopkins University Press.
  • Nixon, John. 2010. Higher Education and the Public Good: Imagining the University. London: Continuum.
  • Nussbaum, Martha C. 2010. Not For Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press.


Open Education and Open Educational Resources (OER) Movement

  • Atkins, Daniel E., John Seely Brown, and Allen L. Hammond. 2007. A Review of the Open Educational Resources (OER) Movement: Achievements, Challenges, and New Opportunities. Report to The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Online
  • Bacow, Lawrence S., William G. Bowen, Kevin M. Guthrie, Kelly A. Lack, and Matthew P. Long. 2012. Barriers to Adoption of Online Learning Systems in U.S. Higher Education. Report on behalf of Ithaka S+R. New York: Ithaka. Online
  • Boyle, James. 2007. “Text is free, we make our Money on Volume(s).” FT.com, January 22. Online
  • Carr, Nicholas. 2012. “The Library of Utopia.” technology review, May/June Issue. Online
  • D’Antoni, Susan, ed. 2009. Open Educational Resources. Special Issue of Open Learning: The Journal of Open and Distance Learning, Vol. 24, No. 1.
  • D’Antoni, Susan, and Catriona Savage, eds. 2009. Open Educational Resources: Conversations in Cyberspace. Paris: UNESCO. Online
  • Darnton, Robert. 2010. “A Republic of Letters.” New York Times Book Review, August 22, p. 15. Online
  • —. 2010. “A Library Without Walls.” NYR Blog. October 4. Online; Print Edition: “Can We Create a National Digital Library?” New York Review of Books. October 28. Online
  • —. 2011. “Jefferson’s Taper: A National Digital Library.” New York Review of Books. November 24. Online
  • Frydenberg, Jia and Gary W. Matkin. 2008. Open Textbooks: Why? What? How? When? Menlo Park (CA): The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Online
  • Iiyoshi, Toru , and M. S. Vijay Kumar, eds. 2008. Opening Up Education: The Collective Advancement of Education through Open Technology, Open Content, and Open Knowledge. Cambridge (MA): MIT Press/The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Online
  • Open Educational Quality Initiative (OPAL), ed. 2011. Beyond OER: Shifting Focus from Resources to Practices. The OPAL Report 2011. Essen (Germany): OPAL. Online
  • Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), ed. 2007. Giving Knowledge for Free: The Emergence of Open Educational Resources. Paris: OECD. Online
  • UNESCO and Commonwealth of Learning, eds. 2011. A Basic Guide to Open Educational Resources (OER). Paris: UNESCO/COL. Online
  • UNESCO and Commonwealth of Learning, eds. 2011. Guidelines for Open Educational Resources (OER) in Higher Education. Paris: UNESCO/COL. Online
  • Walsh, Taylor. 2011. Unlocking the Gates: How and Why Leading Universities Are Opening Up Access to Their Courses. Report on behalf of Ithaka S+R. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press. Online (PDF: text-only version)

→ see also the external links at the bottom of this page




Public Intellectuals and their Changing Role

  • Abbott, Andrew. 2004. “Academic Intellectuals.” Pp. 115-137 in The Dialogical Turn: New Roles for Sociology in the Postdisciplinary Age. Essays in Honor of Donald N. Levine, edited by Camic, Charles, and Hans Joas. Lanham (MD): Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
  • Bender, Thomas. 1988. New York Intellect: A History of Intellectual Life in New York City from 1750 to the Beginnings of Our Own Time. Baltimore (MD): The Johns Hopkins University Press.
  • —. 1993. Intellect and Public Life: Essays on the Social History of Academic Intellectuals in the United States. Baltimore (MD): The Johns Hopkins University Press.
  • —. 1998. “Politics, Intellect, and the American University, 1945-1995.” Pp. 17-56 in American Academic Culture in Transformation: Fifty Years, Four Disciplines, edited by Bender, Thomas, and Carl E. Schorske. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press.
  • Chomsky, Noam. 1967. “The Responsibility of Intellectuals.” New York Review of Books, February 23. Online
  • —. 1996. “Writers and Intellectual Responsibility.” Pp. 55-69 in Powers and Prospects: Reflections on Human Nature and the Social Order. Boston: South End Press.
  • —.  2011. “The Responsibility of Intellectuals, Redux: Using Privilege to Challenge the State.” Boston Review, September/October Issue. Online
  • Collini, Stefan. 1993. Public Moralists: Political Thought and Intellectual Life in Britain, 1850–1930. Oxford (UK): Clarendon Press.
  • —. 2006. Absent Minds: Intellectuals in Britain. Oxford (UK): Oxford University Press.
  • —. 2008. Common Reading: Critics, Historians, Publics. Oxford (UK): Oxford University Press.
  • Eliaeson, Sven, and Ragnvald Kalleberg, eds. 2008. Academics as Public Intellectuals. Newcastle (UK): Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
  • Etzioni, Amitai, and Alyssa Bowditch, eds. 2006. Public Intellectuals: An Endangered Species. Lanham (MD): Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
  • Fink, Leon, Stephen T. Leonard, and Donald M. Reid, eds. 1996. Intellectuals and Public Life: Between Radicalism and Reform. Ithaca (NY): Cornell University Press.
  • Fleck, Christian, Andreas Hess, and E. Stina Lyon, eds. 2009. Intellectuals and their Publics: Perspectives from the Social Sciences. Aldershot (Hampshire, UK): Ashgate.
  • Gagnon, Alain G., eds. 1987. Intellectuals in Liberal Democracies: Political Influence and Social Involvement. New York: Praeger Publishers. Taking a comparative historical approach, covering Britain, Canada, France, Israel, Italy, the U.S., and West Germany.
  • Gattone, Charles F. 2006. The Social Scientist as Public Intellectual: Critical Reflections in a Changing World. Lanham (MD): Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Reviews the work of major social scientists from Max Weber to Pierre Bourdieu.
  • Goldfarb, Jeffrey C. 1998. Civility and Subversion: The Intellectual in Democratic Society. New York: Cambridge University Press.
  • Habermas, Jürgen. 2010. “An Avantgardistic Instinct for Relevances: Intellectuals and Their Public.” Public Sphere Forum. Essay Series on Academia & the Public Sphere. Excerpt from Habermas, Jürgen. 2009. “An Avantgardistic Instinct for Relevances: The Role of the Intellectual and the European Cause.” Pp. 49-58 in Europe: The Faltering Project. Cambridge (UK): Polity Press.
  • Haney, David P. 2008. The Americanization of Social Science: Intellectuals and Public Responsibility in the Postwar United States. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
  • Honneth, Axel. 2012. “Idiosyncrasy as a Tool of Knowledge: Social Criticism in the Age of the Normalized Intellectual.” Public Sphere Forum. Essay Series on Academia & the Public Sphere. Online Republication of Honneth, Axel. 2009. “Idiosyncrasy as a Tool of Knowledge: Social Criticism in the Age of the Normalized Intellectual.” Pp. 179-192 in Pathologies of Reason: On the Legacy of Critical Theory. New York: Columbia University Press.
  • Jacobs, Ronald N., and Eleanor Townsley. 2011. The Space of Opinion: Media Intellectuals and the Public Sphere. New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Jacoby, Russell. 2000 [1987]. The Last Intellectuals: American Culture in the Age of Academe. New York: Basic Books.
  • McGowan, John. 2002. Democracy’s Children: Intellectuals and the Rise of Cultural Politics. Ithaca (NY): Cornell University Press.
  • Michael, John. 2000. Anxious Intellects: Academic Professionals, Public Intellectuals, and Enlightenment Values. Durham (NC): Duke University Press.
  • Mills, C. Wright. 1963. “The Social Role of the Intellectual.” [1944] Pp. 292-304 in Power, Politics and People: The Collected Essays of C. Wright Mills. London/New York: Oxford University Press.
  • —. 2000. “On Intellectual Craftsmanship.” [1959] Pp. 195-226 in The Sociological Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Nagy-Zekmi, Silvia and Karyn Hollis, eds. 2010. Truth to Power: Public Intellectuals in and out of Academe. Newcastle (UK): Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
  • —, eds. 2012. Global Academe: Engaging Intellectual Discourse. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Posner, Richard A. 2003 [2001]. Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline. With a new Preface and Epilogue. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press.
  • Said, Edward. 1996. “Speaking Truth to Power.” Pp. 85-102 in Representations of the Intellectual: The 1993 Reith Lectures. London: Vintage.
  • —. 2002. “The Public Role of Writers and Intellectuals.” Pp. 19-39 in The Public Intellectual, edited by Small, Helen. Malden (MA)/Oxford (UK): Blackwell.
  • Schlesinger Jr., Arthur M. 1969. “The Intellectual and American Society.” Pp. 53-98 in The Crisis of Confidence: Ideas, Power, and Violence in America. New York: Houghton Mifflin.
  • Society Symposium 2009: Part I: “Public Intellectuals then and now” and Part II: ” Who are the Public Intellectuals?” Society 46, No. 1 and 2.
  • Stapleton, Julia. 2001. Political Intellectuals and Public Identities in Britain since 1850. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
  • Townsley, Eleanor. 2006. “The Public Intellectual Trope in the United States.” The American Sociologist 37:39-66.




Professionalization and the Decoupling of Expertise from Advocacy

  • Abbott, Andrew. 2010. “Pragmatic Sociology and the Public Sphere: The Case of Charles Richmond Henderson.” Social Science History 34:337-371. On the decoupling of expertise from advocacy in American academia.
  • Bellah, Robert N., Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler, and Steven M. Tipton. 1985. “Appendix: Social Science as Public Philosophy.” Pp. 297-307 in Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life. Berkeley: University of California Press.
  • Croteau, David, William Hoynes, and Charlotte Ryan, eds. 2005. Rhyming Hope and History: Activists, Academics, and Social Movement Scholarship. Minneapolis (MN): University of Minnesota Press. On the disconnect between social movement scholarship and activism.
  • Flyvbjerg, Bent. 2001. Making Social Science Matter: Why Social Inquiry Fails and How It Can Succeed Again. Cambridge (UK): Cambridge University Press.
  • Smith, Mark. 1994. Social Science in the Crucible: The American Debate over Objectivity and Purpose, 1918-1941. Durham (NC): Duke University Press.




Academia and Public Policy Making

Literature on the changing role of academia in the elite public sphere and in advisory bodies.

  • Anderson, Lisa. 2003. Pursuing Truth, Exercising Power: Social Science and Public Policy in the Twenty-First Century. New York: Columbia University Press.
  • Rein, Martin. 1976. Social Science and Public Policy. London: Penguin.

More to come




The Rise of Competing Expertise outside Academia: Think Tanks

Literature on the rise of think tanks.

  • Gellner, Winand. 1995. Ideenagentur für Politik und Öffentlichkeit: Think Tanks in den USA und Deutschland. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag.
  • Kandiah, Michael David, and Anthony Seldon, eds. 1996. Ideas and Think Tanks in Contemporary Britain. London: Cass.
  • McGann, James G., ed. 2009. Think Tanks and Policy Advice in the US: Academics, Advisors and Advocates. New York: Routledge.
  • Ricci, David M. 1993. The Transformation of American Politics: The New Washington and the Rise of Think Tanks. New Haven (CT): Yale University Press.
  • Rich, Andrew. 2004. Think Tanks, Public Policy, and the Politics of Expertise. New York: Cambridge University Press.
  • Smith, James Allen. 1991. The Idea Brokers: Think Tanks and the Rise of the New Policy Elite. New York: Free Press.




Academic Language and Writing for the General Public

  • Sennett, Richard. 2009. How I Write: Sociology as Literature. Award of the Gerda Henkel Prize 2008. Münster: Rhema. On why many social scientists are menaced by exclusion from the public realm, due to their feeble powers of expression.
  • Tilly, Charles. 2006. “Reconciling Reasons.” Pp. 157-180 in Why?. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press. On how scholars can make their reason giving accessible to the general public: recasting them in the form of “superior stories,” as in-between technical accounts and everyday stories.



Academic Freedom

  • Dewey, John. 1976. “Academic Freedom.” [1902] Pp. 53-66 in 1902-1903. Series: The Middle Works, 1899-1924. Carbondale (IL): Southern Illinois University Press.
  • —. 1987. “The Social Significance of Academic Freedom.” [1935] Pp. 376-379 in 1935-1937. Series: The Later Works, 1925-1953. Carbondale (IL): Southern Illinois University Press.
  • Doumani, Beshara, eds. 2006. Academic Freedom after September 11. New York: Zone Books.
  • Finkin, Matthew W., and Robert C. Post. 2009. For the Common Good: Principles of American Academic Freedom. New Haven (CT): Yale University Press.
  • Gerstmann, Evan, and Matthew J. Streb, eds. 2006. Academic Freedom at the Dawn of a New Century: How Terrorism, Government, and Culture Wars Impact Free Speech. Stanford (CA): Stanford University Press.
  • Hofstadter, Richard, and Walter P. Metzger. 1955. The Development of Academic Freedom in the United States. New York: Columbia University Press.
  • Menand, Louis, ed. 1996. The Future of Academic Freedom. Chicago: Chicago University Press.




Academics/Intellectuals as the Social Basis of Democratization or De-Democratization

Comparative historical literature on academics/intellectuals as a pro-democratic or anti-democratic force at home and abroad, promoting or impeding a democratic public sphere.

Domestic Role

  • Aron, Raymond. 2001 [1955]. The Opium of the Intellectuals. New Brunswick (NJ): Transaction Publishers.
  • Benda, Julien. 2006 [1927]. The Treason of the Intellectuals. New Brunswick (NJ): Transaction Publishers.
  • Craig, Gordon A. 1978. “Weimar Culture.” Pp. 469-497 in Germany 1866-1945. Oxford (UK): Oxford University Press. On the role of intellectuals in the demise of the Weimar Republic.
  • Fink, Leon. 1997. “Progressive Reformers, Social Scientists, and the Search for a Democratic Public.” Pp. 13-51 in Progressive Intellectuals and the Dilemmas of Democratic Commitment. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press.
  • Goldfarb, Jeffrey C. 1998. Civility and Subversion: The Intellectual in Democratic Society. New York: Cambridge University Press.
  • Herf, Jeffrey. 1984. Reactionary Modernism: Technology, Culture and Politics in Weimar and the Third Reich. New York: Cambridge University Press.
  • Jay, Martin, Anton Kaes, and Edward Dimendberg, eds. 1995. “Intellectuals and the Ideologies of the Age.” Pp. 285-392 in The Weimar Republic Sourcebook, edited by Jay, Martin, Anton Kaes, and Edward Dimendberg. Berkeley (CA): University of California Press.
  • Judt, Tony. 2007. The Burden of Responsibility: Blum, Camus, Aron, and the French Twentieth Century. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
  • —. 2008. “The Politics of Intellectual Engagement.” Pp. 93-178 in Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century. London: Penguin.
  • Karabel, Jerome. 1996. “Towards a Theory of Intellectuals and Politics.” Theory and Society 25:205-233.
  • Kenny, Michael. 2004. “Reckless Minds or Democracy’s Helpers?: Intellectuals and Politics in the Twentieth Century (Review Essay).” Contemporary Political Theory 3:89-103.
  • Kurzman, Charles. 2008. Democracy Denied, 1905-1915: Intellectuals and the Fate of Democracy. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press.
  • Kurzman, Charles, and Erin Leahey. 2004. “Intellectuals and Democratization, 1905–1912 and 1989–1996.” American Journal of Sociology 109:937-986.
  • Lilla, Mark. 2001. The Reckless Mind. New York: New York Review of Books.
  • Milosz, Czeslaw. 1981 [1953]. The Captive Mind. New York: Vintage. On the attraction of intellectuals to Stalinism and, more generally, to authority and authoritarianism.
  • Rabinbach, Anson. 2009. “Public Intellectuals and Totalitarianism: A Century’s Debate.” Pp. 107-138 in Intellectuals and their Publics: Perspectives from the Social Sciences, edited by Fleck, Christian, Andreas Hess, and E. Stina Lyon. Aldershot (Hampshire, UK): Ashgate.
  • Recchiuti, John Louis. 2006. Civic Engagement: Social Science and Progressive-Era Reform in New York City. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
  • Stears, Marc. 2010. Demanding Democracy: American Radicals in Search of a New Politics. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press.
  • Walzer, Michael. 2002 [1988]. The Company of Critics: Social Criticism and Political Commitment in the Twentieth Century. New York: Basic Books.
  • Wilkinson, James D. 1981. The Intellectual Resistance in Europe. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press.
  • Wolin, Richard. 2004. The Seduction of Unreason: The Intellectual Romance with Fascism from Nietzsche to Postmodernism. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press.

Foreign/International Role

Literature speaking to the international democratic engagement of academics or the lack thereof – academics as agents of democratization (democracy assistance), nurturing emergent public spheres abroad, or as agents of the status quo or of de-democratization.

  • Berghahn, Volker R. 2002. America and the Intellectual Cold Wars in Europe. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press. Including a history of the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) and the International Association for Cultural Freedom (IACF).
  • Calhoun, Craig. 2012. “Libyan Money, Academic Missions, and Public Social Science.” Public Culture 24:9-45.
  • Engerman, David C. 2009. Know Your Enemy: The Rise and Fall of America’s Soviet Experts. New York: Oxford University Press. On the rise and fall of the field of Soviet Studies.
  • Howard, Dick. 2002. “From Anti-Communism to Anti-Totalitarianism: The Radical Potential of Democracy.” Government and Opposition 37:551–572. Review essay on the history of the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF).
  • Judt, Tony. 1992. Past Imperfect: French Intellectuals, 1944-1956. Berkeley (CA): University of California Press.
  • —. 1992. “Misjudgement of Paris: French Illusions and the Eastern Europe That Never Was.” Times Literary Supplement, May 15. See also: Judt, Tony. 2007. “Introduction: The Misjudgment of Paris.” Pp. 3-28 in The Burden of Responsibility: Blum, Camus, Aron, and the French Twentieth Century. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
  • —. 2008. “The Politics of Intellectual Engagement.” Pp. 93-178 in Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century. London: Penguin.
  • Matynia, Elzbieta. 1996. “Introduction: The Democracy Seminars and Beyond.” Pp. 11-18 and “Prologue: Early Discussions in Warsaw, Budapest, New York, 1986-1989.” Pp. 19-30 in Grappling With Democracy: Deliberations on Post-Communist Societies (1990-1995), edited by Matynia, Elzbieta. Prague: Sociologické Nakladatelství.
  • Scott, Joan W., and Harold F. Linder, eds. 2006. Academic Boycotts. Special Section of Academe, Vol. 92, No. 5, pp. 35-83. Covering the cases of South Africa and Israel.
  • Walzer, Michael. 2008. “On Promoting Democracy.” Ethics & International Affairs 22:351-355. On the role of cosmopolitan professors invited to give lectures in countries with authoritarian regimes.



More To Come




External Links I: Resources on Public Social Science


External Links II: Contemporary Academic Outlets Bridging Academia & the Public Sphere

A list of edited collaborative outlets, general in thematic scope.

Open Access:

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External Links III: Open Educational Resources (OER) Movement