Anxious Intellects: Academic Professionals, Public Intellectuals, and Enlightenment Values [NOOK Book]

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Overview


Intellectuals occupy a paradoxical position in contemporary American culture as they struggle both to maintain their critical independence and to connect to the larger society. In Anxious Intellects John Michael discusses how critics from the right and the left have conceived of the intellectual’s role in a pluralized society, weighing intellectual authority against public democracy, universal against particularistic standards, and criticism against the respect of popular movements. Michael asserts that these ...
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Anxious Intellects: Academic Professionals, Public Intellectuals, and Enlightenment Values

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Overview


Intellectuals occupy a paradoxical position in contemporary American culture as they struggle both to maintain their critical independence and to connect to the larger society. In Anxious Intellects John Michael discusses how critics from the right and the left have conceived of the intellectual’s role in a pluralized society, weighing intellectual authority against public democracy, universal against particularistic standards, and criticism against the respect of popular movements. Michael asserts that these Enlightenment-born issues, although not “resolvable,” are the very grounds from which real intellectual work must proceed.
As part of his investigation of intellectuals’ self-conceptions and their roles in society, Michael concentrates on several well-known contemporary African American intellectuals, including Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Cornel West. To illuminate public debates over pedagogy and the role of university, he turns to the work of Todd Gitlin, Michael Bérubé, and Allan Bloom. Stanley Fish’s pragmatic tome, Doing What Comes Naturally, along with a juxtaposition of Fredric Jameson and Samuel Huntington’s work, proves fertile ground for Michael’s argument that democratic politics without intellectuals is not possible. In the second half of Anxious Intellects, Michael relies on three popular conceptions of the intellectual—as critic, scientist, and professional—to discuss the work of scholars Constance Penley, Henry Jenkins, the celebrated physicist Stephen Hawking, and others, insisting that ambivalence, anxiety, projection, identification, hybridity, and various forms of psychosocial complexity constitute the real meaning of Enlightenment intellectuality. As a new and refreshing contribution to the recently emergent culture and science wars, Michael’s take on contemporary intellectuals and their place in society will enliven and redirect these ongoing debates.
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Editorial Reviews

Gene Shaw
This exciting account touches on the most difficult questions in American public discourse.
—Library Journal
Nicole Duclos
By scrutinizing the ideal of objectivity so revered by intellectuals, Michael brings us face-to-face with our own personal and possibly skewed notions of truth—an insight crucial to living in our multicultural, multifaceted society.
—Utne Reader
William J. Maxwell
Every one of these chapters is lively and valuable, and shows Michael’s firmness and subtlety of mind, his dual commitments to expressive clarity and disciplinary complexity, especially when acting as an English professor leading an interdisciplinary tour. . . . Analyses of intellectual bad faith in liberatory pedagogy, utopian cultural studies, and the fascination with public-sphere physicist Stephen Hawking are particular standouts.
—Politics and Culture
Library Journal
Describing the role of the university and the intellectual from a Left progressive viewpoint, Michael (English, Univ. of Rochester; Emerson and Skepticism: The Cipher of the World) maintains that the Enlightenment project is still an important part of what is best in the Western cultural tradition. He writes about African American intellectuals (Henry Louis Gates Jr., Cornel West), educational practitioners (Paulo Freire), critical theorists (Theodor Adorno), and scientists (Stephen Hawking), as well as other contemporary intellectuals who commit, or while living committed, to an active role in public life. Michael explains that although the grand narratives of the Enlightenment may be in disrepair, the crucial ideas of reason, justice, and equality still frame the political and cultural work of intellectuals today. He defends multiculturalism, relativism, and interdisciplinary studies as positive forces in the modern world for expanding democracy. This exciting account touches on the most difficult questions in American public discourse. Recommended for cultural studies collections.--Gene Shaw, NYPL Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\
From the Publisher
“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

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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780822381396
  • Publisher: Duke University Press
  • Publication date: 4/3/2000
  • Sold by: Barnes & Noble
  • Format: eBook
  • File size: 358 KB

Meet the Author


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.

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