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the classroom. Equally important to this section is the question ofhow our students are figured in relation to their culture in general and to the academic setting in particular. Richard Cavell's "Transvestic Sites: Postcolonialism, Pedagogy, and Politics" considers the use ofpostcolonial theoretical concepts such as borderlands/ borderlines and bordercrossing as means of analyzing texts. Aruna Srivastava's "Anti-Racism Inside and Outside the Classroom" explores anti-racist pedagogical possibilities. Alice Jane Pitts' "Reading Resistance Analytically: On Making the SelfinWomen's Studies" examines student resistance (in the psychoanalytic sense) and identity formation in the classroom context. Patricia Elliot's "Denial and Disclosure: An Analysis ofSelective Reality in the Feminist Classroom" analyzes students' denial ofdifference which are accompanied by disclosures ofdiscrimination . Part Three, Shifting Courses, Directions, andPolicies: Outfrom die Pedagogical Ghetto, steps into the borderlands between the individual and the power structures that govern the individual's possibilities. Juridical discourse is shown by Dorothy E. Smith, in "Report and Repression: Textual Hazards for Feminists in the Academy," to create and limit the ways in which documents may be read, to the disadvantage of those with less power due to gender and seniority. Howard Smith discusses academic promotion based on non-traditional examples ofmerit and scholarship in "'What a Shame You Don't Publish': Crossing the Boundaries as a Public Intellectual Activist." Linda Eyre's essay (mentioned above) appears here, as does Leslie G. Roman andTimothy Stanley's school-based study ofracial and national discourses, "Empires, Emigres, and Aliens: Young Peoples Negotiations of Official and Popular Racism in Canada." Celia Haig-Browns "Gender Equity, Policy, and Praxis" focuses on the need for reflexive and critical analysis of policy initiatives, and Jane Kenway's "Backlash in Cyberspace: Why 'Girls Need Modems'" connects the volume's issues with the information superhighway, positing technology as an "important opportunity" for curricular reform and identity formation. % John James Axtell. The Pleasures ofAcademe:A Celebration andDefense ofHigherEducation. Lincoln: University ofNebraska Press, 1998. 292p. John E. Loftis University of Northern Colorado Part personal memoir, part factual corrective, part polemic; sometimes excessively rhapsodic, sometimes excessively defensive; and always traditional and conservative , James Axtell's Pleasure ofAcademe is certainly a unique contribution to the 144 * ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW * SPRING 2000 currently vigorous genre of academic critique and self-examination. The book's organization (chapters 1-5 under the heading "Academic"; chapters 6-1 1 under "Pleasures"), its wide range ofsubjects (from the work load ofcollege professors and the value of scholarship, to academic family lives and the lure of college towns), and the "Preface" openly announce the somewhat patchwork nature of the book. In fact, it is made up ofa variety ofAxtell's previous addresses, award acceptance speeches, and some new essays. While the book advances no central, continuous argument, the essays nevertheless provide a coherent background for a concluding chapter that systematically addresses five ofthe most important attacks on higher education. The unusual mixture of memoir, fact, and polemic is clear from the opening chapter ("[Mis]Understanding Academic Work"), which sets out, as do many academic self-justifications, to demystify the work professors actually do, arguing that the number ofhours in the classroom, the common public notion ofprofessorial work, is wholly inadequate. Axtell acknowledges two sources for more accurate data: "representative statistics" from formal studies (5) and "personal experiences ofworking professors," especially his own (6). This interweaving ofpersonal experience and statistical data from research studies to shape an argument occurs both within individual chapters (as here) and across chapters in the text as a whole. The chapters in part two ("Pleasures") are mostly personal narratives and reminiscences, but which Axtell intends will inform and exemplify the argumentative chapters ofpart one ("Academic"). And to an extent they do: for example, his discussion of his own interdisciplinary scholarship ("Between Disciplines") which also describes changes in the nature ofacademic research, and his account offamily trips which also further the academic parent's research projects ("Family Vacations") both put a personal face on earlier chapters on academic work ("[Mis]Understanding Academic Work") and his defense of research ("Scholarship Reconsidered"). Axtell is always clear and jargon free, but his rhetoric sometimes shades into the clichéd extremes on both ends ofa scale from the excessively...

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