Ayi Kwei Armah’s Intellectuals of the African Renaissance

‏‎intellectuals: utopias of dystopias‎‏

‏‎‏‎utopia has, for four centuries, accompanied that hope of progress and that striving for betterment. it now straggles against a widespread sense that this has been an illusion, or an impossible dream. the utopian idea can never entirely disappear, but utopia as a form of the social imagination has clearly weakened. if it cannot instill its vision in the public consciousness, the consequences...

Intellectuals and the Rise of Mass Politics

Diaspora , Intellectuals , and the State

NO AREA OF PUBLIC CONSCIENCE ILLUST"TES THE ANXIOUS MEETING of state policy and cultural mythology more than illegal immigration. As once-con#dent national polities in Europe and the United States su$er a series of economic shocks, a backlash has gathered momentum, targeting the imported labor that in many ways symbolizes the so% core of the old regimes’ economic foundations. A variety of extre...

Terrorism and health: the responsibility of intellectuals?

Intellectuals and New Technologies

Critical intellectuals were traditionally those who utilized their skills of speaking and writing to denounce injustices and abuses of power, and to fight for truth, justice, progress, and other positive values. In the words of Jean-Paul Sartre (1974: 285), "the duty of the intellectual is to denounce injustice wherever it occurs." The modern critical intellectual's field of action was what Hab...