Abstract

The University is one of the most influential and underexamined kinds of corporations in the modern world. Responsible both for mass higher education and for elite training, it aims to produce and disseminate knowledge, and to prepare graduates for work in all different kinds of fields. It functions both as a symbol and repository of learning, as well as one of the most important sites of networking, patronage, and socialization today. It is, in short, one of the most alluring and abused institutions in our culture, often idolized as a savior or a scapegoat. And while the first universities were not founded in the service of research, today’s most prestigious schools claim to be centrally dedicated to it. But what is research? Where does our notion of research and the supposed ability to routinely produce it come from.

I am writing a book, provisionally entitled The End of Learning, which will be a history and analysis of the rise of the American research university and the research ideal. This book will be a critical and episodic history, including close examinations of individuals, events, trends, and the larger sociological and philosophical features of the modern American academy. I plan to place in a larger context, chronologically and geographically, many of the profound, but rarely mentioned, transformations of higher education that shape how we think about the production of humanistic and scientific knowledge. Chapters will range from an examination of the founding of the Land-Grant colleges and the first state university systems, to a history of tenure, and a consideration of the growth of academic genres like the dissertation and letters of recommendation.