R. Geiger

This essay traced the historical process by which essential elements of scientific advancement coalesced to form the system of American research universities. Initially, knowledge inspired by the scientific ethos relied on ad hoc organizations but had no grounding in educational institutions. Such a foundation emerged first in German universities and then inspired a handful of American universities. They, in turn, nurtured and incorporated a system of academic disciplines, producing a system of recognition for intellectual achievement which was incorporated into an academic reward system. Universities had limited resources for advancing knowledge. After 1920, American foundations embraced the scientific ethos of advancing knowledge through basic research. Until 1945, the system of research universities was steeply hierarchical, as resources were disbursed according to academic potential and achievement. After the war, the federal provision of research funds greatly expanded the size and effectiveness of this system. The post-Sputnik explosion of all supporting resources created the mature system of American research universities and solidified a federal partnership for the advancement of knowledge. As research universities prospered, they sponsored social-behavioral subjects having social objectives. Polarization of the political environment after 2000 increasingly affected research universities and the university research system. The hegemony of the scientific ethos was progressively eroded in favor of the priority of social justice memes. When diversity was imposed on the hiring of academic personnel, it corrupted the reward system based on the scientific ethos. In 2025 the Trump Administration regarded universities as an enemy and explicitly sought to control them for its own political ends. The politicization of universities and American society, first by the Left and then by the Right, now threatens to compromise the enormous achievements of American science.

Unter dem Eindruck einer "Renaissance des Religiösen" einerseits und der zunehmenden Politisierung von Religionen andererseits rückt die Verhältnisbestimmung von Politik und Religion im staatlichen wie im internationalen Kontext verstärkt in den Fokus des politischen und gesellschaftlichen Interesses. In den letzten Jahren trägt auch die politische Philosophie dieser Situation vermehrt Rechnung, was sich in einer steigenden Zahl von Veröffentlichungen zu diesem Thema niederschlägt. Dabei kann sie auf eine reiche Tradition philosophischer Modelle zum Neben-, Mit- oder Gegeneinander von Politik und Religion zurückblicken. Was in dieser Diskussion bisher jedoch fehlt, ist eine differenzierte Darstellung der für die Verhältnisbestimmung von Philosophie, Politik und Religion klassischen Modelle, angefangen von der griechischen Antike bis in die Liberalismus-Kommunitarismus-Debatte des ausgehenden letzten Jahrhunderts. Diese Lücke schließt der vorliegende Band: In 15 Beiträgen namhafter Experten werden klassische Modelle der Verhältnisbestimmung von Philosophie, Politik und Religion, beginnend mit Platon bis hin zu Charles Taylor, eingehend behandelt.

This article presents the results of a poll made among the members of the editorial and advisory boards of Valuation Studies. The purpose is to overview the topic that is the remit of the new journal. The poll focused on three questions: 1. Why is the study of valuation topical? 2. What specific issues related to valuation are the most pressing ones to explore? 3. What sites and methods would be interesting for studying valuation? The answers to these questions provided by sixteen board members form the basis of the article. Based on these answers, it identi!es a number of themes concerning the study of valuation, elaborating on the rationale for attending to valuation, the conceptual challenges linked to this, and the specific issues and sites that deserve further attention.

Scholars and practitioners across domains are increasingly concerned with algorithmic transparency and opacity, interrogating the values and assumptions embedded in automated, black-boxed systems, particularly in user-generated content platforms. I report from an ethnography of infrastructure in Wikipedia to discuss an often understudied aspect of this topic: the local, contextual, learned expertise involved in participating in a highly automated social–technical environment. Today, the organizational culture of Wikipedia is deeply intertwined with various data-driven algorithmic systems, which Wikipedians rely on to help manage and govern the “anyone can edit” encyclopedia at a massive scale. These bots, scripts, tools, plugins, and dashboards make Wikipedia more efficient for those who know how to work with them, but like all organizational culture, newcomers must learn them if they want to fully participate. I illustrate how cultural and organizational expertise is enacted around algorithmic agents by discussing two autoethnographic vignettes, which relate my personal experience as a veteran in Wikipedia. I present thick descriptions of how governance and gatekeeping practices are articulated through and in alignment with these automated infrastructures. Over the past 15 years, Wikipedian veterans and administrators have made specific decisions to support administrative and editorial workflows with automation in particular ways and not others. I use these cases of Wikipedia’s bot-supported bureaucracy to discuss several issues in the fields of critical algorithms studies; critical data studies; and fairness, accountability, and transparency in machine learning—most principally arguing that scholarship and practice must go beyond trying to “open up the black box” of such systems and also examine sociocultural processes like newcomer socialization.