approaches and strategies, and the roles of empirical data and the-
ory.^7 Moreover, they include beliefs about whether academic excel-
lence is “real” or located in the eye of the beholder, whether consen-
sus can be reached, and what might ground it. They also encompass
debates over standards, the role of theory, consensus in a field, the
ability to judge, the importance of disciplinary boundaries, and the
significance of subjectivity in the pursuit of knowledge.
Disciplinary differences are not only part of the funding panel
experience, but also are at play in academic life more generally. As
stereotypes, these differences often serve as grounds against which
members of disciplines define themselves relationally, that is, in op-
position to other disciplines. And like all stereotypes, disciplinary
stereotypes are reinforced by lack of contact with the “other.”^8 The
frequency of interaction across disciplines typically is low, owing
to the strong departmental structure of academia, the growing de-
mands on faculty time, and the exigencies of keeping up in one’s
own field. Thus a consideration of disciplinary evaluative cultures is
crucial for understanding the behavior of funding panels (as well as
higher education more generally). The picture of disciplinary tem-
peraments that emerges here is very different from that offered by
Richard Whitley, who focuses on variations in dependency and task
uncertainty across the disciplines.^9
The discussion in this chapter draws on several sources. One is
what individual panelists say—inchoate, unreflective responses as
well as well-considered, theorized positions—about differences in
disciplinary cultures and about how standards vary across disci-
plines. I focus on six of the eleven disciplines that the study’s respon-
dents hail from. These fields are roughly distributed on the humani-
ties/social science and soft/hard axes, and include 75 percent of my
respondents.^10 In order of presentation, the disciplines are philoso-
phy, English, history, anthropology, political science, and econom-
ics. Because the social science competitions I studied are somewhat
On Disciplinary Cultures / 55