Introduction: Academic Capitalism and the Crisis of the Professoriate

Abstract:In history, as in all disciplines, scholarship has over the past several decades been shaped increasingly by the emergence of what has been called "academic capitalism," which has reshaped universities in accordance with market logic and market priorities. This order is characterized most vividly by the emergence of a system of stark and increasing inequality between a relatively privileged minority of institutions and professors, themselves internally differentiated and besieged, and a growing mass that lacks the security and resources to engage in scholarship. The advent of academic capitalism and the consequent bifurcation and stratification of the professoriate and the deterioration of its power and conditions of work inevitably have a profound impact on who enters the profession, on who will teach and write history and, ultimately, on what and whose histories will be studied. For the first time in many decades historians may need to justify to both our students and the broader public not only our right and responsibility to determine what constitutes historical knowledge but also the very existence of our discipline as something other than the inculcation of patriotic and cultural values. In addItion, the logic of academic capitalism, with its expanding segmentation of faculty work and its stress on measuring, assessment, and quantification, has pushed everyone to be more competitive and focused on productivity. These developments pose a major threat not only to the academic freedom of individual scholars but to scholarship itself.