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Top Reads of 2017

Over the past year, The Chronicle Review has published more than 200 essays, book reviews, and articles, written by professors, administrators, grad students, and journalists. We’ve met a polyamorous philosopher, a lecturer trying to save liberal democracy, a gadfly in the campus culture wars, and an avant-garde poet turned political investigator.

We observed a university literally burying its past, explored the alt-right’s Jane Austen, peered into the future of the university press, investigated a famous food laboratory, and pondered professorial wardrobe malfunctions, censorship on campus, and how universities embolden white nationalists.

Here, below, are 10 articles that strongly connected with readers in 2017. We think they’re worth another look.

Exploitation and the Humanities 1
The Review
‘The Great Shame of Our Profession’
By Kevin Birmingham
How the humanities survive on exploitation.
Free Speech Is Not an Academic Value 1
The Review
Free Speech Is Not an Academic Value
By Stanley Fish
You don’t have the right to say whatever you want on a college campus.
Eyewitness 1
The Review
Eyewitness to a Title IX Witch Trial
By Laura Kipnis
Northwestern University’s prosecution of Peter Ludlow was a purification ritual dressed up as a civilized hearing.
Sokal-horizontal
From the Archives
Anatomy of a Hoax
An oral history by Jennifer Ruark
How the physicist Alan Sokal hoodwinked a group of humanists and why, 20 years later, it still matters.
Claremont Graduate U., in California.
The Review
The Academic Home of Trumpism
By Jon Baskin
This little circle of SoCal Straussians became the intellectual hub of Trumpism.
Michael Bonesteel says he resigned his position as adjunct professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago after a "Kafkaesque inquisition" concluded that he was guilty of student harassment on the basis of gender identity.
The Chronicle Review
The Offender
By Tom Bartlett
Two students accused Michael Bonesteel of being insensitive, unsupportive, and even violent. Did the art professor get what he deserved — or were the students out to get him?
The CIA’s Favorite College President 1
The Chronicle Review
The CIA’s Favorite College President
By Daniel Golden
Graham Spanier rolled out the red carpet for the intelligence services to conduct covert operations involving colleges.
When Universities Swallow Cities 1
CITIES
When Universities Swallow Cities
By Davarian L. Baldwin
Is it in the public interest to have giant urban campuses freeload off their neighbors’ taxes?
Admissions Confidential 1
The Review
Confessions of an Admissions Officer
By Jason England
The process can make a fool or liar out of anyone.
Academe’s Poisonous Call-Out Culture 1
Commentary
Academe’s Poisonous Call-Out Culture
By Suzanna Danuta Walters
There are real, imminent threats to freedom and social justice. So why are scholars attacking an ally?