Academic Keywords: A Devil's Dictionary for Higher Education

From Library Journal
How would you define academic freedom? Do you know the true meaning of faculty or sexual harassment? These are three of 47 words and phrases explained in this unusual work. Nelson (English, Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Manifesto of a Tenured Radical, New York Univ., 1997) and Watt (English and cultural studies, Indiana Univ.) have composed a dictionary they describe as a cross between Ambrose Bierces 1911 The Devils Dictionary and Raymond Williamss Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society (1976). Like its predecessors, Nelson and Watts work incorporates (sometimes irreverent) definitions of words and phrases of importance to the academic world to help both academics and the public better understand education today. The definitions range from a few sentences to miniessays several pages long. Some entries include See also references to other definitions. The authors feel that higher education is in serious trouble, and their book works successfully as a consciousness-raising vehicle. We make no apology for and offer no retreat from the very bleak, even apocalyptic, portrait we paint of higher educations prospects, they write in their preface. Recommended for academic libraries.Terry A. Christner, Hutchinson P.L., KS
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
Academic Keywords demands and deserves serious attention. Nelson and Watt diagnose with keen analyses and illustrative anecdotes a set of ills that threaten the health, if not the life, of the American university. [P]erhaps what is most impressive about this justifiably angry book is the idealism that accompanies its outrage. In their entries on Doctoral Dissertations and Mentoring, Nelson and Watt show that their critique is rooted in a deep commitment to higher education, and specifically to graduate education. The changes they advocate and urge are aimed at improving, perhaps even rescuing, an institution they seem profoundly to care about. – College Literature
Smart, incisive and brave, ACADEMIC KEYWORDS probes 47 aspects of academe in droll entries that range from half a page to more than 20. Nelson, a sly University of Illinois liberal arts professor best known for MANIFESTO of A TENURED RADICAL (1997), and Watt, an Indiana University English professor expert in postmodernism and drama, write like whistleblowers with diplomas from a semi-Marxist cell that alternates Groucho with Karl. – Carlin Romano, The Philadelphia Inquirer
…sure to make even the tweediest spit their twice-boiled departmental coffee across the office. – Toronto Globe and Mail
Academic Keywords won't be a favorite of the corporate university and its proponents, but it is indispensable to those who wish to salvage higher education for open intellectual exchange and real learning. – Judith Roof, author of Reproductions of Reproduction
A dictionary that redefines the basic vocabulary of academic life, Academic Keywords is also an action handbook for faculty reformers, student activists, adjunct organizers, and even thoughtful administrators. – Karen Thompson, President, Part-time Faculty Union, Rutgers University
A terrific book–funny, sad, useful, outrageous–one of the best reflections on America's contradictory university system. Read it and weep–or laugh–or, best of all, act. – Paul Lauter, editor of the The Heath Anthology of American Literature
Required reading for parents, teachers, lawmakers–true to the bone–an utterly frank, witty, and thoroughly engrossing portrait of the appalling experiences of today's students and educators. – Mark Bousquet, founding editor, Workplace: The Journal of Academic Labor
Thorough analysis. – Bimonthly Review of Law Books
More of an encyclopedia, with the alphabetical articles weighing in at several pages each. They combine scathing humor with serious criticism of the academic system, respect and praise for some elements of it, to begin thinking differently about the process, hope for reform, and practical measures to take.