Abstract
The backdrop of this chapter is the world we live in: an international #BlackLivesMatter movement, the state-sanctioned poisoning of water in Flint, Michigan, the water protectors at Standing Rock who are opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline, and so many other instances of civil society erupting with movements for justice. I write this as President Trump takes office and appoints a slew of racist fundamentalists, among them Reince Priebus and Steve Bannon. Given this state of affairs, I have taken a moment to pause and contemplate the role of the scholar activist in twenty-first-century America.
Research is not frivolous: we, too,