Introduction

Abstract

In Walden, Thoreau tells the story of an Indian who goes door to door in Concord selling the baskets he’s woven. He finds no buyers: while the baskets were beautiful, the man had not taken the trouble to make them worth anything to his neighbors. Academics have taken a similar approach to knowledge. They too have produced objects of great subtlety and beauty. But in too many cases they have not tried to make their research relevant to anyone beyond a disciplinary cohort. They have mostly followed Thoreau’s path: “instead of studying how to make it worth men’s while to buy my baskets, I studied rather how to avoid the necessity of selling them.”