Articles

Despite years of research on ways to reform graduate education, young scientists face uncertain futures in academe.
Stephen D.H. Hsu, of the U. of Oregon, is a successful theoretical physicist, but his doctoral students have ended up in business careers after failing to land positions in academe. (Photograph by Tim Jewett)

• ONE PATH TO CHANGE: The chemistry department at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor requires graduate students to rotate through several specialties before picking one.

A professor at Idaho State University believes administrators revealed too much when a mining company asked questions about his research.

When the Gestapo took his daughter in for questioning, Freud — the patriarch whose theories helped end patriarchy — felt the full vulnerability of fatherhood, writes Mark Edmundson, a professor of English at the University of Virginia.

Gun control is a policy and cultural issue that goes far beyond debate over the Second Amendment. Acknowledging that is the first step in curbing gun violence, writes Mark V. Tushnet, a professor at Harvard Law School.

How should secularists and atheists treat sacred texts? asks Carlin Romano, critic at large for The Chronicle.

Al Qaeda offers one rationale for its actions to Western audiences, but another to Muslims, writes Raymond Ibrahim, editor and translator of The Al Qaeda Reader.

Eventually gender studies was bound to notice men. The results aren't pretty, writes Camille Paglia, a professor of humanities and media studies at the University of the Arts.

Japanology has lost one of its giants, writes Anthony H. Chambers, a professor of Japanese at Arizona State University.

Ken Burns started his mammoth project in peacetime. Iraq makes his recounting of American involvement in World War II look strange to us in some ways, but sadly familiar in others, writes Marianna Torgovnick, a professor of English at Duke University.

Research Notes

COLLABORATIVE SHIFT: The NIH has awarded $210-million in grants meant to foster interdisciplinary studies.

THE PENTAGON'S BUDGET: Defense spending on basic research would receive no increase in 2008 under a plan approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee.

A RIOT OF TITLES: In academe there is a journal for every subcategory of every subdiscipline.