Public Intellectuals in the Global Arena: Professors or Pundits?

Description

What is a public intellectual? Where are they to be found? What accounts for the lament today that public intellectuals are either few in number or, worse, irrelevant? While there is a small literature on the role of public intellectuals, it is organized around various thinkers rather than focusing on different countries or the unique opportunities and challenges inherent in varied disciplines or professions. In Public Intellectuals in the Global Arena, Michael C. Desch has gathered a group of contributors to offer a timely and far-reaching reassessment of the role of public intellectuals in a variety of Western and non-Western settings. The contributors delineate the centrality of historical consciousness, philosophical self-understanding, and ethical imperatives for any intelligentsia who presume to speak the truth to power. The first section provides in-depth studies of the role of public intellectuals in a variety of countries or regions, including the United States, Latin America, China, and the Islamic world. The essays in the second section take up the question of why public intellectuals vary so widely across different disciplines. These chapters chronicle changes in the disciplines of philosophy and economics, changes that "have combined to dethrone the former and elevate the latter as the preeminent homes of public intellectuals in the academy." Also included are chapters that consider the evolving roles of the natural scientist, the former diplomat, and the blogger as public intellectuals. The final section provides concluding perspectives about the duties of public intellectuals in the twenty-first century. Cover Public Intellectuals in the Global Arena Title Copyright CONTENTS Acknowledgments Public Intellectuals: An Introduction PUBLIC INTELLECTUALS IN A COMPARATIVE CONTEXT one Historical Consciousness, Realism, and Public Intellectuals in American Society two American Public Intellectuals and the Early Cold War, or, Mad about Henry Wallace three The Public Intellectual in China four Intellectuals and Intelligentsia in Latin America five The Intellectual, Culture, and the State: The Experiences and Failures of Enlightenment in the Arab World PUBLIC INTELLECTUALS ACROSS DISCIPLINES six The Philosopher as Public Intellectual seven The Economist as . . . ? The Public Square and Economists eight Of Mirrors and Media: The Blogger as Public Intellectual nine Science in the Crosshairs: The Public Role of Science and Scientists ten Diplomats as Intellectuals: An Unlikely Combination REFLECTIONS eleven Reckless Minds: Caveat Lector twelve Caveat Lilla: On Public Intellectualism in the Twenty-First Century thirteen The Public Intellectual as Teacher and Students as Public: Declining and Falling Apart fourteen The Ethical Imperative for Some Scholars to Be Public Intellectuals and for the Rest to Let Them Do So Concluding Thoughts: Toward a Typology of Public Intellectuals List of Contributors Index