Public Philosophy

the mechanisms of publishing come to stand in for the larger and more complex processes of creating, vetting, and circulating knowledge

if we examine the work that humanists are doing—in something like the way that scholars in the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) have done for science—by looking at their culture of material practices, then the familiar framework of “publishing” does not serve us well

to publish this scholarship requires that we add some new dimensions to our ideas of “publishing.”

The unionization campaign at Northwestern is no doubt exciting. That any group of people in their late-teens and early-twenties, football players or otherwise, thought to address their workplace grievances through organizing is, in this rabidly anti-union place and time, nothing short of remarkable. If they succeed (which is still far from certain), their victory could reverberate across the intercollegiate athletic world, transforming the NCAA in the process. And, not inconsequentially, they could pave the road for organizing advances by graduate students, medical residents, and many others who work for the same institution that bestows their degrees or credentials.