Know what academic freedom is? Or what it's come to mean? What's affirmative about affirmative action these days? Think you're up on the problem of sexual harassment on campus? Or know how much the university depends on part-time faculty? Academic Keywords is a witty, informed, and sometimes merciless assessment of today's campus, an increasingly corporatized institution that may have bitten off more than its administration is ready to chew. Cary Nelson and Steve Watt use the format of a dictionary to present stories and reflections on some of the most pressing issues affecting higher education in America. From the haphazard treatment of graduate students to the use and abuse of faculty (as well as abuses commited by faculty), Nelson and Watt present a compelling and, at times, enraging report on the state of the campus.

Peer review is the process by which submissions to journals and presses are evaluated with regard to suitability for publication. Armed with the results of numerous empirical studies, critics have leveled a variety of harsh charges against peer review such as: reviewers and editors are biased toward authors from prestigious institutions, peer review is biased toward established ideas, and it does a poor job of detecting errors and fraud. While an immense literature has sprouted on peer review in the sciences and social sciences, Peer Review is the first book-length, wide-ranging study of peer review that utilizes methods and resources of contemporary philosophy. Its six chapters cover the following topics: the tension between peer review and the liberal notion that truth emerges when ideas proliferate in the marketplace of ideas; arguments for and against blind review of submissions; the alleged conservatism of peer review; the anomalous nature of book reviewing; the status of non-peer-reviewed publications, such as invited articles or Internet publications, in tenure and promotion cases; and the future of peer review in the age of the Internet. The author has also included several key readings about peer review.

Explores how shifts in the job market and changes in university culture and administration have influenced the "post-theory" generation of literary critics.

The literature of American music librarianship has been around since the 19th century when public libraries began to keep records of player-piano concerts, significant donations of books and music, and suggestions for housing music. As the 20th century began, American periodicals printed more and more articles on increasingly specialized topics within music studies. Eventually books were developed to aid the music librarian; their publication has continued over the course of nearly a century. This book reflects the great diversity of the literature of music librarianship. The main resources included are items of historical interest, descriptions of individual collections, catalogues of collections, articles describing specific library functions, record-related subjects, bibliographies designed for music library use, literature from Canada and Britain when relevant to U.S. library practices, key discographies, and information on specialized music research. The material is ordered by topic and indexed by author, subject, and library name.

In an age when innovative scholarly work is at an all-time high, the academy itself is being rocked by structural change. Funding is plummeting. Tenure increasingly seems a prospect for only the elite few. Ph.D.'s are going begging for even adjunct work. Into this tumult steps Cary Nelson, with a no- holds-barred account of recent developments in higher education. Eloquent and witty, Manifesto of a Tenured Radical urges academics to apply the theoretical advances of the last twenty years to an analysis of their own practices and standards of behavior. In the process, Nelson offers a devastating critique of current inequities and a detailed proposal for change in the form of A Twelve-Step Program for Academia.