Public Intellectuals Research Articles

The Higher Feebleness: E.M. Forster as a Public Intellectual

The Higher Feebleness: E.M. Forster as a Public Intellectual

James Baldwin and Ernest Hemingway: The Expatriate Artist as Organic Intellectual

Intellectuals are a class of educated and gifted people (writers, scholars, scientists, artists) produced by society to perform social functions and assume a historical responsibility. Their ethically-based competences and prophetic visions are vital to establishing a sustainable social order and promoting the society of justice. Edward Said wrote in Representations of the Intellectual that “the proliferation of intellectuals has expanded into the very large number of fields in which intellectuals—possibly following on Gramsci’s pioneering suggestions in The Prison Notebooks which almost for the first time saw intellectuals, and not social classes, as pivotal to the workings of modern society—have become the object of study.” To exemplify and understand the role of the intellectual vocation, this paper explores the question of organic intellectualism in famous American expatriate writers Ernest Hemingway and James Baldwin using distinguished public intellectuals such as Edward Said and Cornel West as a conceptual framework and theoretical reference. The discussion raises, among others, the following focus questions: what is an intellectual? What is the role and responsibility of this social class in the public domain? How do intellectuals relate to the marketplace, power, and the marginalized? How do intellectuals contribute to social change? The paper argues that both transatlantic authors Ernest Hemingway and James Baldwin were organic intellectuals whose engaged social critique, intellectual expertise, and activism were designed to counter social dysfunction, injustice, and modern alienation.

“All the research says”: manufactured consensus and the burden of proof in the racialized police violence controversy

This article reconstructs and analyzes the argument strategies used by right-wing public intellectuals, journalists, and political figures to delegitimize the controversy over racialized police violence. I demonstrate how right-wing advocates aim to shift the issue to the technical sphere, claiming to represent an expert consensus and depicting antiracist advocates as misunderstanding, if not intentionally misusing, technical data. This case provides a rich opportunity to deepen rhetoric and argument study of, first, how advocates disguise racist and post-racial discourses in the terms of technical expertise, and, second, how the burden of proof is assigned and negotiated within racial controversies. Claiming to represent an expert consensus would seem to carry a much higher burden of proof than would amplifying technical uncertainty. I argue, however, that defenders of the police mitigate this burden through heavy reliance on argument from ignorance, insinuating that the supposed lack of evidence of officer bias means that police use of lethal force must be racially fair.

Restitution: Paths Toward a Clearing

Restitution: Paths Toward a Clearing

The Future Museology: Museum as Public Intellectual and Emotional Influencer

The Future Museology: Museum as Public Intellectual and Emotional Influencer

Public Governance and Intellectual Property Management in Research Funding Agencies

This article aims to analyze the position of the Research Support Foundations (FAPs) regarding the obligation of co-ownership in patent deposits, arising from financial support promoted by them. To this end, a search was proposed in the database of the National Institute of Industrial Property – INPI for FAPs and federal development agencies. For the search of international development agencies, the Orbit Intelligence database was used. The results of this study show that the Foundation for Research Support of the State of Minas Gerais (FAPEMIG) remains the holder with 522 deposits, followed by the Foundation for Research Support of the State of São Paulo (FAPESP) with 275 deposits and the other FAPs with rare cases. Although the three federal agencies do not require joint ownership, 522 deposits with joint ownership by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) and 27 deposits with joint ownership by the Financier of Studies and Projects (FINEP) were found, however, no deposit was found on behalf of the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES). And among the 4 main countries analyzed, France is the only one in which there is a concentration of ownership in a central development agency, this can be explained by the fact that France's Intellectual Property Policy makes this type of requirement. In the other countries surveyed, there is no such requirement for participation in co-ownership of patent deposits. In interviews with managers of the FAPs, it was evident that a percentage of them claim that the arguments for participation or not show advantages, and from the point of view of those who do not defend participation, pointing out disadvantages.

The Public Intellectual in the Era of Twitter

The Public Intellectual in the Era of Twitter

Centrist utopianism in retreat: ideological fragmentation after the financial crisis

ABSTRACT This article explores utopian dimensions and reality problems in the intellectual production of leading Anglophone public intellectuals and policymaking institutions of Western capitalism. We argue that from the close of the 1990s, but especially in the wake of the Great Financial Crisis of 2007–2009, elite discourse has splintered into three core strands or moments: first, a post-hegemonic, punitive neoliberalism of austerity, which retreats from leadership and seeks to preserve extant power relations; second, a pragmatic neo-Keynesian turn, which frequently combines the language of enterprise and competition with advocacy of selective political and economic re-regulation towards a more socially justified capitalism; and third, the advance of a ‘liberalism of fear’, which evokes a number of threatening dystopian figures in populism, protectionism, the 1930s, extremism and totalitarianism. This splintering effect, we argue, is one of the key features of today’s wider ideological-utopian constellation, entwined with the growth of the new far right and with radicalization on the left. Drawing on a Gramscian analysis of crisis, we argue that the ideological incoherence of the dominant intellectual elite, and the denuded utopian dimensions of their discourse, are both symptomatic and productive of the present organic crisis of Western capitalism and its attendant crisis of intellectual and moral leadership.

Communicative Capitalism and Neo-Feudalism: An Interview with Jodi Dean

Communicative Capitalism and Neo-Feudalism: An Interview with Jodi Dean

The road to the Second Karabakh War: the role of ethno-centric narratives in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

ABSTRACT On September 27, 2020, the three-decades-long Nagorno-Karabakh conflict erupted into war. During 44 days of organized violence that claimed thousands of lives, the political leadership of Armenia and Azerbaijan along with public intellectuals, journalists, artists and ordinary citizens, continually and publicly expressed pro-war sentiments and confidence in their victory. This article examines the strategies of Azerbaijani and Armenian political and intellectual elites and the formation of myths and conflict narratives that steadily led the two societies towards the Second Karabakh War. It further examines the post-war discursive developments that are working to set Armenia and Azerbaijan on the path to a new round of destructive confrontation.

Voices from the Chinese Century: Public Intellectual Debate from Contemporary China, edited by Timothy Cheek, David Ownby, and Joshua A. Fogel. New York: Columbia University Press, 2020. vii+388 pp. US$30.00/£25.00 (paper).

<i>Voices from the Chinese Century: Public Intellectual Debate from Contemporary China</i>, edited by Timothy Cheek, David Ownby, and Joshua A. Fogel. New York: Columbia University Press, 2020. vii+388 pp. US$30.00/£25.00 (paper).

Echoes from the Global South: Reflections on the Student Public Intellectual, Hashtags and Neoliberal Themes in the #FeesMustFall Student Protests in South Africa (2015–2016)

The student protests in South Africa (2015–2016) reflected multiple dimensions of the crisis in higher education. These included epistemic, economic, political, psychological and social dimensions, raising serious concerns about the social compact in a post-1994 South Africa. What I examine through an eclectic approach which incorporates a first-person methodology and critical discourse analysis are the nuances and meanings that surfaced when students captured specific events and then articulated the events and the unfolding experiences in a vocabulary that provided a translation for their emotions and pain. This was done by the students by both linking and challenging protest hashtags or referencing texts that had only recently become accessible to them. As they learnt, they shared, and as they shared they realised that there were others experiencing similar challenges, such as the student protests in Chile (2011–2012). Sharing experiences is an act of solidarity and the benefits of solidarity strengthened the language needed to articulate what the students encountered in specific moments. I show that the South African students echoed issues that were found in the higher education protests in Chile, whilst also drawing lines in the sand with regards to the challenges in their own lived context. What is most significant for me is that in both the South African and Chilean protests an interesting phenomenon is evident that has not been acknowledged—this is the rise of the student-academic public intellectual. This paper highlights these developments to challenge the narrative of “uncivilised” and violent black students by contextualising and animating their articulations, questions and their understanding of the ideology and system that was suffocating them.

Modern Women Intellectuals and the Sandino Rebellion: Carmen Sobalvarro and Aura Rostand

Achieving global fame in 1927, Nicaragua’s General Augusto César Sandino came to symbolize and unite international solidarity movements against US imperialism by cultivating a sophisticated transnational intellectual network that encompassed communications, public relations, intelligence, provisions, volunteers, and fundraising. The participation of male public intellectuals in Sandino’s strategic communications is well documented, but the roles of intellectual women in the rebellion have not been appreciably explored to date. Bringing to light new archival research on the Nicaraguan poets and journalists Carmen Sobalvarro and Aura Rostand, this article examines how their gendered writing and public personae propagated both Sandino’s war and his legacy after his 1934 assassination. As part of an informal network of women intellectuals, Sobalvarro and Rostand played integral roles in Sandino’s public relations in Nicaragua and abroad. As Sandino has once again become a contested figure in light of Nicaragua’s oppressive Ortega-Murillo government, this recuperative cultural study also bears on present-day Nicaraguan political discourse.

Editorial: Refashioning stories for celebrity counterpublics

Using celebrity narratives as a starting point, this Special Issue explores the social significance of storytelling for social change. It builds on the 8th Centre for Media and Celebrity Studies conference, which brought together scholars and media practitioners to explore how narratives inspired by the lives of celebrities, public intellectuals, critics and activists offer useful rhetorical tools to better understand dominant ideologies. This editorial further problematizes what it means to be a popular ‘storyteller’ using the critical lens of celebrity activism and life-writing. Throughout the issue, contributors analyse the politics of representation at play within a wide range of glamourous narratives, including documentaries, memoirs, TED talks, stand-up performances and award acceptance speeches in Hollywood and beyond. The studies show how we can strategically use aesthetic communication to shape identity politics in public personas and bring urgent social change in an image-driven celebrity culture.

AndrewJewettScience Under Fire: Challenges to Scientific Authority in Modern AmericaHarvard University Press, 2020, 356 p., $39.95

Rejection of science—or what is labeled as rejection of science—is a notorious feature of the contemporary cultural and political landscape in the United States. Highly visible instances are dismissals of evolutionary theory, climate change denial, and antivaccine movements. In this deeply researched and thoughtful book, Andrew Jewett describes tensions about science over the past century, with a focus on the 1920s, the 1960s and 1970s, and the present. Jewett argues that the 1920s witnessed the first intense and widespread disputes in the United States over scientific authority. The controversies in this period concerned not only evolutionary theory (e.g., Scopes Trial) but also, and more importantly, modern psychology, which became a fixture in widely read newspapers and periodicals, to the dismay of those attached to religiously grounded understandings of human personality and what constitutes proper child socialization. The second period of tension about science Jewett identifies and examines in depth was the post-WWII decades, especially the 1960s and 1970s. Ironically from the standpoint of the present, it was if anything public intellectuals on the left who expressed dismay and distrust of science. “scientism” was viewed as intrinsically hostile to humanistic values, with soulless technology and an implicitly materialistic worldview posing at least as much risk to the achievement of a just and compassionate society as conservative religious institutions. The final period that Jewett considers is the first two decades of the twenty-first century. The tensions he describes are entirely familiar, but they take on a fresh appearance with the historical backdrop he provides, and his nuanced portrait of the positions of the key protagonists produces a welcome respect for the complexity of ongoing intellectual and political controversies. Over the entire century from the 1920s to the present, the unifying theme in the questioning of scientific authority has been the allegation that scientists, while ostensibly value-neutral, have injected social philosophies into American life that have damaged the social and moral order. Jewett concludes with a plea to approach science more matter-of-factly. Scientific tools can be credited with producing tremendous gains in human well-being but within rather circumscribed domains. Much that is highly valued in the human experience lies outside the reach of modern science.

Stoic pragmatist ethics in the time of pandemic

Abstract The present paper is a response, of sorts, to the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic (COVID) and lockdown that we all must face. We have an idea of what doctors, nurses, teachers, among many of the other professions, do for the general public, but one may ask whether there is something substantial that philosophers and ethicists can offer in these circumstances. The thesis of this paper is that the stoic attitude towards times of trouble and the pragmatist way of finding out what is possible to elevate the quality of living against all odds, if skilfully interwoven, could be an important tool in keeping mental health in good shape and, additionally, could contribute to the cultural scene at large. If this is the case, stoic pragmatists can indeed offer an interesting example of practical philosophy for many audiences, especially during the pandemic lockdown and, perhaps, for other serious difficulties or problems. To be effective in delivering their message, stoic pragmatists, as most with philosophers today, should enrich their textual and oral modes of traditional transmission of knowledge and become digital-culture public intellectuals that can recognize and reach more general audiences by, among other things, visual modes of digital communication.

Turkey's Foreign Policy: Opportunities and Constraints in a New Era

Turkey's Foreign Policy:Opportunities and Constraints in a New Era Evren Balta (bio) and Soli Özel (bio) writing in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of the soviet Union and the reshuffling of regional and global alliances, Malik Mufti took note of how Turkish political elites confronted this new world. He wrote, "those responsible for determining its foreign policy—motivated by considerations of fear, honor and profit—are casting their eyes back in time in search of clues on how best to proceed" (1998, 32). According to Mufti, what shaped the elites' response to the changing circumstances was a combination of external threats and opportunities coupled with domestic constraints. Focusing on strategic culture, he identified two competing lines among the foreign policy elites: daring and caution. Until the 1990s, Turkey's foreign policy establishment continued to err on the side of caution based on lessons learned from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. According to this view, the Ottoman Empire collapsed mainly as a result of Ottoman elites' adventurous foreign policy and their expansionist and greedy outlook. More importantly, during the Cold War, the hallmark of Turkish foreign policy was an approach that prioritized a stable national interest defined by the sanctity of Turkey's borders and a predominantly Western orientation (Aydın 2000). This high degree of continuity and uniformity was not just limited to Turkey, as the foreign policies of small and middle-sized countries mostly reflected the bipolar nature of the international system that left little room for developing an independent [End Page 539] foreign policy. In such a polarized international setting, multilateral institutions enhanced the negotiation power of small/middle powers (Matarrazzo 2011, 55). Not atypically for such countries, Turkey sought to adhere to membership in the key multilateral frameworks of the Western camp (the Council of Europe 1949, the OECD 1948, and NATO 1952) in order to intensify its negotiation power and security, enhance its international status, and compensate for its relative lack of independent foreign policy (Aydın 2000; Yılmaz 2012). As the Cold War came to a close, a persistent call for a more assertive foreign policy emanating from the newly established political parties, emerging leaders, and public intellectuals occupied the public sphere in the 1990s. Exaggerating the passivity of Turkey's foreign policy establishment, this new orientation asked for a more dauntless outlook and wanted to replace the status-quoism of Turkish foreign policy with a search for missed or new opportunities. In fact, the end of the Cold War had fundamentally altered the context within which Turkish foreign policy was conducted, and it gave way to multiple waves of foreign policy activisms (Öniş 2011, 15). Yet Turkey's foreign policy remained predominantly Western-oriented until the mid-2000s. During the first two decades of the twenty-first century, the pendulum shifted more towards the daring side, what Mufti called the "Imperial tradition," after the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi, AKP) took office in 2002. Initially, the party adopted extensive reforms that aimed to democratize Turkey's political system with hitherto unmatched political will and popular support. These moves, which were also in response to the European Union's "harmonization packages" that could qualify Turkey for EU membership, received strong and sustained support domestically, as they did from Turkey's democratic allies and even some neighboring publics (Akkoyunlu, Nicolaïdis, and Öktem 2013, 22). Beginning with the AKP's second term (2007), however, Turkey's foreign policy veered sharply away from the EU. Instead, enhancing Turkey's hegemonic role in the Middle East replaced the goal of integration with the West [End Page 540] and became the central aim of foreign policy particularly after the series of protest movements that engulfed much of the Arab World in 2011. Frequent crises and abrupt shifts in Turkey's foreign policy outlook have heightened the debate between the AKP and its critics, the latter criticizing the AKP for pursuing a mostly adventurous foreign policy. The debate intensified after 2011, when not just the Middle East but the international system entered a period of flux and uncertainty. It was a period in which traditional verities of international and regional norm setting...

Feminist humour’s disruptive potential: Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood and Rupi Kaur’s ‘I’m taking back my body’

Using Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood and Rupi Kaur’s TEDxKC performance, ‘I’m taking back my body’, as case studies, this article examines how feminist humour is used by celebrities and public intellectuals to tell personal stories of oppression, trauma and inequality. Building on humour theory, feminist humour theory and affect theory, this article examines the potential of feminist humour as a rhetorical device to help storytellers tell difficult stories, to engage in acts of community-building and world-making, to challenge social inequalities and to enable social change. Ultimately, this article asks what we can learn from these examples, and how we can employ feminist humour in our own storytelling practices not only to disrupt power relations and establish solidarity, but also to imagine new, more equitable, worlds.

Loyalist, Dissenter and Cosmopolite: The Sociocultural Origins of a Counter-public Sphere in Colonial Hong Kong

AbstractThis paper surveys the process of discursive contestation by intellectual agents in Hong Kong that fostered a counter-public sphere in China's offshore. In the post-war era, Chinese exiled intellectuals leveraged the colony's geopolitical ambiguity and created a displaced community of loyalists/dissenters that supported independent publishing venues and engaged in the cultural front. By the 1970s, homegrown and left-wing intellectuals had constructed a hybrid identity to articulate their physical proximity to, yet social distance from, the Chinese nation-state, as well as to appropriate their sense of belonging to the city-state, through confronting social injustice. In examining periodicals and interviewing public intellectuals, I propose that this counter-public sphere was defined first by its alternative voice, which contested various official discourses, second by its multifaceted inclusiveness, which accommodated diverse worldviews and subjectivities, and third by its critical platform, which nurtured social activism in undemocratic Chinese societies. I differentiate the permissive conditions that loosened constraints on intellectual agencies from the productive conditions that account for their penetration and diffusion. Habermas's idealized public sphere framework is revisited by bringing in ideational contestation, social configuration and cultural identity.

Architects as Public Intellectuals: How Far Beyond Can We Go?

Editorial Summary: The research of Hannah Knoop is methodologically based on political theory, extended by fundamental methods of art history and the humanities. The starting point of her work is the presumption that the work on the design, the architectural activity, also inherits an intellectual dimension and that both the architect as a person understands, and represents the challenge, expectation, and dimension of the so-called intellectuality, as well as that the public grants her this quality. She observes that the quantitative research method in political science is based on three principles: contextuality, processuality, and reflexivity; terms that are quite familiar within the discipline of architecture and which have corresponding connotations. In doing so, she stresses that a critical examination and constant review of this transfer from an established research science to the architectural research field is essential. [Ferdinand Ludwig]