Historian of science James Andrews reflects on key moments in the twentieth century in which authoritarian regimes and, at times, democratic ones, have significantly interfered in the enterprise of scientific research. Taking examples from the former Soviet Union and elsewhere, Andrews examines how distortions to the process of peer review and other interventions constitute “warning signs” that portend limits to the autonomy and progress of science that may have resonance today.
Allan Goodman, president of the Institute of International Education, calls attention to a central tension in contemporary higher education. On the one hand, universities around the world seek more and more international students and greater international collaboration for a range of academic and pragmatic reasons. On the other, Goodman notes the recent rise of a kind of “educational nationalism,” in the United States and around the world, that places limits on the flows of people and ideas, and on the forging of partnerships. He calls for a constructive form of nationalism that competes to “globalize curricula, professors, and the student body.”
Motivated by concerns over the problems and tensions of the present, Herbert Gans makes the case for the study of the future—that is, how individuals and institutions imagine and construct future lives and worlds. Understanding future constructions, and their differences across the boundaries of class, gender, race, generation, religion, and other social markers, provides a window into conflicts of the present and new possibilities for engaging them.
The relaunch of Items generates reflection. It arrives at a time of anxiety and intolerance, demagoguery and fear. How, we might ask, should heightened uncertainty shape and orient our craft?
