Fighting for Affirmation: A Review of Patricia Leavy’s The Oxford Handbook of Methods for Public Scholarship

Abstract

With The Oxford Handbook of Methods for Public Scholarship, editor Patricia Leavy and a diverse array of contributing authors fight for affirmation of the value of public scholarship in mainstream academic consciousness. The result is an impressively expansive and phenomenally detailed volume that handily demonstrates not only the scientific rigor of public scholarship, but also the irreplaceable value of such work. This handbook both orients readers to the conceptual contributions of various forms of public scholarship and instructs us in concrete skills for practicing these approaches in our own work.