A cross-disciplinary collection of 20 essays describing the journey to public scholarship, exploring the pleasures and perils associated with breaching the town-gown divide.

Includes contributions from departments of geography, comparative literature, sociology, communications, history, English, public health, and biology

Discusses their efforts to reach beyond the academy and to make their ideas and research broadly accessible to a wider audience

Opens the way for a new kind of democratic politics—one based on grounded concepts and meaningful social participation

Includes deeply personal accounts about the journey to becoming a public scholar and to intervening politically in the world, while remaining within a university system

Provides a broad prescription for social change, both within and outside the university