The Public Intellectual - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0631231986 ISBN 13: 9780631231981

Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell, 2002

Synopsis

New essays by prestigious thinkers such as Edward Said, Bruce Robbins, Jacqueline Rose, and Stefan Collini on the public role of writers and intellectuals.

About this title

About the Author

Helen Small is Fellow in English Literature at Pembroke College, Oxford. She is currently the holder of a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship (2001-2004), and is writing a book on the philosophy and literature of aging.

From the Back Cover

In this excitingand timely book, prestigious thinkers such as Edward Said, Jacqueline Rose, Bruce Robbins, and Stefan Collini discuss the role of writers and intellectuals today and in the past, examining the ways in which thought can be publicly expressed, and how it may relate or fail to relate to activism. Their combined responses represent a major and long overdue riposte to claims of a decline in public intellectual life.

The volume significantly extends the historical range of most writing about intellectuals, exploring the relationship between thought, professionalism, and public action from Hellenistic late antiquity onward. Other essays in this collection are immediately contemporary in focus, addressingthe ways in which the idea of the public intellectual is being reformed today in different political and national contexts and in different media, including film and the visual arts.

The volume significantly extends the historical range of most writing about intellectuals, exploring the relationship between thought, professionalism, and public action from Hellenistic late antiquity onward. Other essays in this collection are immediately contemporary in focus, addressingthe ways in which the idea of the public intellectual is being reformed today in different political and national contexts and in different media, including film and the visual arts.

Reviews

The nine papers presented here are from participants at a conference on "The Public Role of Writers and Intellectuals," held at Oxford University in September 2000. The conference was motivated by a desire to show how thought entering the public arena can lead to constructive activism-and that "the universal intellectual is not in terminal decline." In this they have succeeded: there is no question that these papers, all by accomplished professors in the humanities, show unequivocally that intellectual life is alive and well. But the breadth of the concerns here is daunting: there is hardly a topic in art, literature, history, philosophy, music, or theater that is not at some point touched upon. The very intellectualism on display here will limit the book's appeal; these are intellectuals writing for other intellectuals, and the book will be largely inaccessible to the vast majority of readers. For the rest, this is a fascinating, engaging example of the fecundity of the human intellect. For academic collections where appropriate.
Leon H. Brody, U.S. Office of Personnel Management Lib., Washington, DC
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0631231986
• ISBN 13: 9780631231981
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256
• Editor: Small Helen