Chad Wellmon is an associate professor of German studies at the University of Virginia and principal of UVA’s Brown College. His books include Organizing Enlightenment: Information Overload and the Invention of the Modern Research University and The Rise of the Research University: A Sourcebook, which he co-edited with Louis Menand and Paul Reitter.
A lack of such modesty among experts may partly explain why many Americans no longer trust their institutions.
Given its history and the continued strength of its ideals, the university may be the institution best equipped to sustain such an experiment in pluralism and democratic discourse.
The many books and articles devoted to establishing (or attacking) Kant exemplified a genre that exploded around 1800 in Germany.
Majoring in English, the sales pitch now goes, will help you craft your soul.
With the rise of humanism and modern critical scholarly practices in subsequent centuries, texts began to be treated as material objects to be fixed and plumbed for meaning.
Whatever their differences, these accounts of a university in crisis shine a bright light on the system that manages the relationship of the university to the broader culture.