are often very critical of the assumptions that applicants from eco-
nomics make in their proposals. An anthropologist comments,
“They [applicants from economics] were viewed as living in their
own world, defined by a theoretical worldview and both being un-
willing to explain it and not interested in thinking about anything
different.” Similarly, a sociologist notes an economist’s critical atti-
tudes toward more interpretive proposals: “He was coming out of a
sort of pretty positivist organization that most of the rest of the
committee didn’t care for. So he tended to be kind of critical of all
the history proposals. But the rest of the folks, I thought, were quite
open and were willing to change their minds.”
In keeping with their discipline’s positivist tradition, the econo-
mists I interviewed seem to believe that excellence resides in the ob-
jects being evaluated—in the proposal and the project themselves—
as opposed to resulting from the negotiated interdisciplinary agree-
ment reached by panelists. The sense economists have of a clear line
that separates the best from the rest is associated, as well, with a
more objectivist view of the value of knowledge. At the close of an
interview, one economist reaffirms his belief in academic excellence
by saying, “I certainly believe there are ideas that are valuable and
discovering them is a mark of excellence in all kinds of ways...Icer-
tainly think there’s something out there to look for, and people who
are finding it. I guess that’s the definition of excellence. I think we
recognize now certain major ideas developed in the past that really
changed our view of the world.”
Conclusion
American higher education brings together disciplines that are re-
markably different in their evaluative cultures, intellectual traditions,
and professional languages. Disciplinary norms are stronger in some
fields than in others, because American academia is also multidi-
102 / On Disciplinary Cultures