scholarly journals POPULAR HISTORY, POST-WAR LIBERALISM, AND THE ROLE OF THE PUBLIC INTELLECTUAL IN RICHARD HOFSTADTER'S THE AMERICAN POLITICAL TRADITION (1948)

2016 ◽  
Vol 59 (4) ◽  
pp. 1133-1155 ◽  
Author(s):  
NICK WITHAM

ABSTRACTThis article examines the status of Richard Hofstadter's classic work The American political tradition (1948) as a ‘popular history’. It uses documents drawn from Hofstadter's personal papers, those of his publisher Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., as well as several of his contemporaries, to pursue a detailed reconstruction of the manner in which the book was written, edited, and reviewed, and to demonstrate how it circulated within, and was defined by, the literary culture of the 1940s and 1950s. The article explores Hofstadter's early career conception of himself as a scholar writing for audiences outside of the academy, reframes the significance of so-called ‘middlebrow’ literature, and, in doing so, offers a fresh appraisal of the links between popular historical writing, liberal politics, and the role of public intellectuals in the post-war United States.

2007 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 295-316 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara A. Misztal

This paper's purpose is to exam Turner's (2006a) thesis that Britain neither produced its own public intellectuals nor a distinctive sociology. It aims to outline difficulties with the logic of Turner's argument rather than to discuss any particular public intellectual in Britain. The paper argues that Turner's claim about the comparative insignificance of public intellectuals in Britain reinforces the myth of British exceptionalism and overlooks the significance of the contribution to the public sphere by intellectuals from other disciplines than sociology. It discusses Turner's assumption that intellectual innovation requires massive disruptive and violent change and suggests that such an assertion is not necessarily supported by studies of the conditions of the production of knowledge. Finally, the paper argues that Turner's anguish at the absence of public intellectuals among sociologists in Britain is symptomatic of New Left thinking that models the idea of the intellectual on Gramsci. In conclusion, the paper asserts that Turner's idea of the intellectual fails to note the tension at the heart of the role of public intellectual–the tension between specialist and non-specialist functions.


Author(s):  
Anil Kumar Nauriya

There is one aspect of Libraries that needs particularly to be highlighted, namely the role of the public library as a par excellence site that upholds the public intellectual space when contrasted to the more restricted academic space. It is a primary means by which public intellectuals and, through them, civil society, may hold even academia to account when the latter becomes confined by dead habits or restricted by institutional, bureaucratic, elitist or other, structures. It needs to be emphasized that academia and scholarship are not necessarily congruent. The interplay between academia and scholarship is crucial and that is made possible by the public library. Open libraries, especially public libraries, are at least as vital as the academia. The importance of a library or a museum is not necessarily related to its location or its size. “Preservation” and “intellectual heritage” need to be decolonized in order to realize epistemic justice.


2021 ◽  
pp. 136843102110031
Author(s):  
Peter J. Verovšek

Realists and supporters of ‘democratic underlabouring’ have recently challenged the traditional separation between political theory and practice. Although both attack Jürgen Habermas for being an idealist whose philosophy is too removed from politics, I argue that this interpretation is inaccurate. While Habermas’s social and political theory is indeed oriented to truth and understanding, he has sought realize his communicative conception of democracy by increasing the quality of political debate as a public intellectual. Building on his approach, I argue that giving the theorist a direct role in public policy undermines theory as an enterprise oriented towards truth while overlooking the contingency, participatory nature and complicated internal logics of social and political practice. My basic thesis is that Habermas’s understanding of the relationship between theory and practice overcomes these difficulties by providing an account of theory that is independent but simultaneously also allows philosophers to participate in politics as public intellectuals.


1999 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 25-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Scott

NATO's intervention in Kosovo dramatically highlighted the differences and disagreements between cosmopolitans and their critics. This article offers a critically summary of the arguments of both camps (and various positions within them) as they unfolded in the German media, and particularly in the broadsheet press, during the NATO bombing campaign. An attempt is made to fill in the broader context by pointing out some differences between the debates in Britain and those in Germany. While the implications and possible weaknesses of the cosmopolitan position is the main focus, the role of public intellectuals the media is also discussed.


Plaridel ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 25-48
Author(s):  
Lara Katrina Mendoza

This paper will present Aristotle Pollisco—the singer-rapper-songwriter known as Gloc-9—as an organic and a as-yet-unrealised public intellectual. The term “organic” describes Gloc 9’s lack of academic or institutional recognition. No academic institutions recognize his level of influence and power. As a public intellectual, however, Gloc-9 enjoys immense popularity with his core fanbase, which is largely made up of listeners from the lower classes. This paper uses both Antonio Gramsci’s definition of the organic public intellectual and Edward Said’s claim regarding the exhortation of public intellectuals who exercise their political will in the public sphere. Mikhail Bakhtin’s discourse on the carnivalesque will bolster this paper’s claim that Gloc-9 assumes the role of an organic public intellectual through his music. In attempting to confront powerful institutions, Gloc-9 upends the social order through his songs rather than engaging other public intellectuals and scholars in ideological discourse. The paper will closely examine five of Gloc-9’s chart-topping songs dealing with poverty, social injustice, gender inequality, and corruption.


Author(s):  
Aga Skrodzka

This article argues for the importance of preserving the visual memory of female communist agency in today’s Poland, at the time when the nation’s relationship to its communist past is being forcefully rearticulated with the help of the controversial Decommunization Act, which affects the public space of the commons. The wholesale criminalization of communism by the ruling conservative forces spurred a wave of historical and symbolic revisions that undermine the legacy of the communist women’s movement, contributing to the continued erosion of women’s rights in Poland. By looking at recent cinema and its treatment of female communists as well as the newly published accounts of the communist women’s movement provided by feminist historians and sociologists, the project sheds light on current cultural debates that address the status of women in postcommunist Poland and the role of leftist legacy in such debates.


2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-23
Author(s):  
Miomir Jakšić

Abstract The article discusses the status and role of regulatory bodies and the aftermaths of their independence and accountability to the public and the parliament. The author analyses different legal statuses of regulatory bodies in Montenegro and Serbia in the central banking and energy sectors and concludes that it is necessary that national constitutions, as the highest legal acts in each state, prescribe in a separate article that “Regulatory bodies are independent and accountable to Parliament”. Relevant separate legal acts should closely define the procedures for establishing, enforcing, and sanctioning of possible breaching of: 1) independence of regulatory bodies, 2) accountability of regulatory bodies to the parliament, and 3) transparency of their activities.


Author(s):  
Damir Khamitovich Valeev ◽  
Anas Gaptraufovich Nuriev

The research analyses the implementation of the role of maximizing the level of security in the administration of justice in the context of the digital economy. Methodologically, the documentary observation research technique and, to process sources, sociological-dialectical analysis were used. Digitization as a transformational factor of many branches of social relations implies dependence on the implementation of a series of interdependent legal facts with digital technologies so that the action has a legal and concrete result. The digital level as a new platform for the implementation of a number of public functions posing new challenges for the public administration system and also determines the status of new functions that can provide a "digital future" with a positive development dynamic. Conclusion mode everything indicates that, these new functions can be austable in order to maximize security in the implementation of public functions in response to new threats. Particularly sensitive is the area of justice administration, which is also actively introducing many digital tools into the case-resolution process.


2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (esp) ◽  
pp. 43
Author(s):  
Grant Jarvie

Este ensaio trata de questões relacionadas a questionamentos sobre o papel do intelectual público e da universidade como recursos para tratar de questões públicas e assumir ativamente o engajamento público como parte do contrato universitário. O ensaio trabalha com os protestos sociais e políticos que antecederam à Copa do Mundo da FIFA, em 2014, no Brasil, como base para pesquisar duas interrogações: Para que servem as universidades? Que oportunidades são proporcionadas pelo esporte para se atuar como intelectual público e ser recurso de esperança no mundo de hoje? Este pequeno estudo sobre o futebol, o Brasil e o papel do intelectual se baseia em fontes primárias e secundárias. O artigo conclui com a recomendação de que as pessoas que trabalham no esporte e por meio dele na universidade têm um meio ideal para trabalhar com o público sobre as questões que são importantes para o público, e devem usar integralmente essa oportunidade.


2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (01) ◽  
pp. C04
Author(s):  
Randy Olson

This commentary is both a case study of the evolution of one public intellectual, and an analysis of how he has broadened his voice beyond the standard academic bubble. His story gives a perspective on the question of, “How do public intellectuals get their start?” They almost certainly begin as “mere” intellectuals — the public part comes later. But how? How does a studious academic go from following the media to being part of the media?


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