With so much uncertainty about financing, Mr. Teret said, the circle of academics who study the phenomenon has fallen off significantly.
In recent days, a number of prominent writers and bloggers have made the trip to Shandong, and an even wider circle of academics, lawyers and essayists have weighed in on what amounts to a rare wave of civil disobedience.
One evening, soon after I arrived in Jaffna, the capital of the northern province, I had dinner at the house of a woman whose sister had been part of a circle of academics who had published a book in 1990 called "The Broken Palmyra".
Celebrations of the publisher's 60th anniversary in 2005 helped bring him out of the circle of professional and academic admirers to a much wider audience.
He wrote little and his influence was exerted by means of conversation and philosophical discussion with the circle of intellectuals and academics centered in Cambridge, Mass.
Most controversial is the proposal to judge the quality of research based on its impact outside of academic circles.
But I believe there are signs of a change and there is now an increasing awareness in China, outside of academic circles, of the rise of ideals like fairness.
"Most of the voices that are shouting in the wilderness about these dams are still very little heard outside of academic circles," Mr. Osborne said.
"Most of the voices that are shouting in the wilderness about these dams are still very little heard outside of academic circles," Mr. Osbourne said.
Unlike Mr. Bradley, Dr. Cole, 59, has spent much of her career in academia, and while she has a reputation as a reformer, she is little known outside of academic circles.
