In this interview with Michèle Lamont, Harvard Professor of Sociology, we discuss her new book, How Professors Think: Inside the Curious World of Academic Judgment (Harvard, 2009). How professors judge the quality and significance of scholarship depends upon disciplinary standards not always consistent with one another, rhetorical strategies of those submitting and reviewing scholarship, and the pragmatic constraints of review processes that together form the dynamic culture and "technology" of evaluation in higher education. Lamont brings greater transparency to these standards and processes. We specifically discuss a set of key standards that academics across disciplines gravitate toward in making their judgments. These include clarity, quality, originality, significance, methods, and feasibility.
Even academics may register surprise at how these standards are understood and weighted so diversely across disciplines, and yet Lamont shows how professors transcend differences and arrive at workable and reliable decisions. My more complete review of the book will follow.
Listen to the episode here (or subscribe to the podcast here).
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