Anxious Intellects: Academic Professionals, Public Intellectuals, and Enlightenment Values

John Michael

Published by Duke University Press 2000

Anxious Intellects

Academic Professionals, Public Intellectuals, and Enlightenment Values

John Michael

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822381396

Overview
Contents

About this book

A critical examination of the complex role of intellectuals in contemporary society, including the often contradictory definitions of such roles advocated by intellectuals themselves.

Author / Editor information

John Michael is teaches in the department of English at the University of Rochester. He is the author of Emerson and Skepticism: The Cipher of the World.

Reviews

“Anxious Intellects introduces fresh material and a generally new tone into the discussion of the quarrels now familiarly known as the culture wars. Readers will welcome its efforts to disabuse parties on both sides of some of their more comforting fantasies about intellectual labor and to move the debate about intellectuals and politics onto more fruitful terrain.”—Ellen Rooney, Brown University

“Anxious Intellects is a state-of-the-art assessment of the function of intellectuals at the turn of the century. Michael’s astute and generous commentary on recent developments in this long tradition is especially relevant, coming at a time when human intelligence is becoming the staple industrial unit of the new economy.”—Andrew Ross, New York University

“Seeking ‘an embattled middle ground,’ Michael offers sustained and always astute commentary on the mixed results of the intellectual’s status in the United States today.”—Chris Newfield, University of California, Santa Barbara

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction: Fundamental Confusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
PART ONE. Cultural Authority, Enlightenment Traditions, and Professional Anxiety
1 Publicity: Black Intellectuals as Inorganic Representatives Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	23
2 Pedagogy: Enlightened Instruction as Oppressive Discipline Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	44
3 Community: Pragmatism as a Profession of Anxiety Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	64
4 Culture:Western Traditions and Intellectual Treason Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	89
PART TWO Projected Identities,Universal Illusions, and Democratic Discourse
5 The Critic: Cultural Studies and Adorno’s Ghost Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	111
6 The Scientist: Disembodied Intellect and Popular Utopias Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	131
7 The Professional: ScienceWars and Interdisciplinary Studies Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	148
Conclusion: Tattered Maps Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	169
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	177
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	203
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	213

Language: English
Publisher: Duke University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 232

eBook

Published: April 24, 2000
ISBN: 9780822381396