Book excerpt: It’s not what you know, but who you know. It’s not what you do, but where you do it. Underlying such facile assertions, there lies at least a little truth—and, for academics, a complex web of relationships. Academic affiliations confer value and identity on individuals, disciplines, and institutions. They have a formative and formidable role in determining the status and self-image of academics and institutions. The subtleties and implications of such a system—in personal and professional terms—are the subject of this timely and thought-provoking volume. Here writers from all walks of academic life interweave personal experiences and critical insights to reveal the inner workings of affiliation in contemporary academic culture. These essays take up topics ranging from scholars’ attitudes toward their affiliated institutions to publishing in academic journals, from the phenomenon of the academic star system to activism among tenured professors, from the perils of crossing disciplinary boundaries to the merits of mentoring through affiliation. Together they offer a frank, firsthand view of the ways and means and the uses and abuses of affiliation in higher education today—a view that is sure to provoke discussion throughout academia.