ABOUT
THE FACULTY READING GROUP
The FRG is a reading group whose focus is academic
knowledge itself. The idea is to gather together classic
texts from a variety of overlapping (but surprisingly
cloistered) fields: the history of science, science
studies, the sociology of knowledge, science and technology
studies, modern intellectual history (and the history of
disciplines), philosophy of science and social science, and
the sociology of science.
Among the topics that we will discuss: the conditions for
(and limits of) valid knowledge in the sciences, social
sciences, and humanities; the process of cross-national and
cross-disciplinary translation and diffusion; the
representation of science in literature, art, and the mass
media; the growth and evolution of the research university;
the role of extra-intellectual pressures like funding,
enrollments, career advancement, and personal rivalry; the
uses of disciplinary history for field legitimation,
graduate student socialization, and border-maintenance; and
the intersection of academic knowledge, public policy, and
commercial exploitation.
We share the sense that Muhlenberg has an unusual cluster
of expertise on these topics—that the conditions are
in place for a genuinely interdisciplinary conversation.