Review Essays The Humanities and their Boundaries

In 1977, under the direction of former Nixon cabinet member William E. Simon, the John M. Olin Foundation launched a campaign to create a conservative "counterintelligensia" to oppose the liberal bias of humanities faculty in American universities. Over a period of nearly three decades, Olin funneled tens of millions of dollars to conservative scholars and institutions until, at the end of 2005, the foundation discontinued its programs (Miller). The liberal humanities, itwould seem, are no longera threat. It is notthe case, of course, that conservatives have won a battle of ideas within the academy. Instead, Olin and other conservative foundations have won a fight to reduce public funding for higher education. The prevailing ideology of academic humanism is more expansively democratic and egalitarian than ever; however, the humanities are being contained and neutralized; their effectiveness is undermined by the "neoliberal" privatization of American higher education. Neoliberalism should be seen, notwithstanding the confusing terminology, as an outgrowth of "neoconservatism," the political movement that emerged partly as a reaction to the moral relativism and disregard for traditional values of late twentieth-century American society, and partly as a rejection of the "politics of identity" adopted by the anti-racist, feminist, and gay rights movements. While neoconservatism sought to restore traditional hierarchical