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Top Reads of 2015

Over the past year, The Chronicle Review published 196 essays, book reviews, and news articles written by professors, administrators, grad students, journalists, and one personal assistant. Taken as a whole, the themes that inspired, unsettled, and provoked readers included the corporatization of the university; sexual politics and the impact of Title IX; tensions between academic freedom and civility; race on campus (including injustices suffered by black professors), and the push and pull of intellectual progress across the disciplines.

Controversy swirled around a work of urban ethnography. Academic outcasts sought to contribute new insights (and, perhaps, revive their reputations). Professors questioned the teaching-research binary and diagnosed a “plague of hypersensitivity.”

Here are 10 articles that strongly connected with readers in 2015. We think they’re worth another look.

—The Editors

  • The Review

    The Slow Death of the University

    Bean counters, bureaucrats, and barbarians are to blame.
  • The Chronicle Review

    Sexual Paranoia Strikes Academe

    How campus rules make students more vulnerable.
  • The Chronicle Review

    My Title IX Inquisition

    What’s the good of having a freedom you’re afraid to use?
  • The Chronicle Review

    The Attack on Truth

    We are entering an age of willful ignorance.
  • The Review

    Why I Was Fired

    Incivility is the only civilized response to barbarity.
  • The Chronicle Review

    The Believers

    The hidden story behind the code that runs our lives.
  • The Chronicle Review

    Teach or Perish

    The professoriate needs to refocus on students or face extinction.
  • The Chronicle Review

    When I Was White

    Regardless of what you may think of Rachel Dolezal, racial transition is a valid experience. I have gone through it.
  • The Chronicle Review

    The End of Male Supremacy

    Biologically, intellectually, socially, women are the superior gender, and society will increasingly reflect that.
  • The Chronicle Review

    What ‘Learning How to Think’ Really Means

    Intellectual virtues prepare students for their professional and personal lives.