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Over the past decade, Jeffrey J. Williams has been one of the most perceptive observers of contemporary literary and cultural studies. He has also been a shrewd analyst of the state of American higher education. How to Be an Intellectual brings together noted and new essays and exemplifies Williams's effort to bring criticism to a wider public
How to Be an Intellectual profiles a number of critics, drawing on a unique series of interviews that give an inside look at their work and careers. The book often looks at critical thought from surprising angles, examining, for instance, the history of modern American criticism in terms of its keywords as they morphed from sound to rigorous to smart. It also puts in plain language the political travesty of higher education policies that produce student debt, which, as Williams demonstrates, all too readily follow the model of colonial indenture, not just as a metaphor but in actual point of fact.
How to Be an Intellectual tells a story of intellectual life since the culture wars. Shedding academic obscurity and calling for a better critical writing, it reflects on what makes the critic and intellectual the accidents of careers, the trends in thought, the institutions that shape us, and politics. It also includes personal views of living and working with books.
- Sales Rank: #1405818 in Books
- Published on: 2014-09-15
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 5.90" h x .70" w x 8.90" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 232 pages
Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
Unique and Illuminating Reflections on the Politics and Culture of Contemporary University Life
By Robert Francis
This book offers a series of reflections on academic life in the late twentieth century, focusing on topics that many scholars are curious about but are not often explored in much depth.
What can scholars learn from journalists, and why don’t more of them try to write more accessibly? What institutional codes will be violated if they were to do so, and why are they there? Another key theme is how the careers of certain exemplary figures in the university in the past two or three generations were possible in a practical sense—how they were shaped by the politics and economics of the period—and why such careers are no longer viable? What made the age of theory possible? Why did it seem so compelling at the time, and how did it come to an end? Finally, what are the effects of the privatization of the university and the rise of student debt on the aspirations of individual scholars and intellectuals?
Williams addresses these issues piecemeal, but they offer an illuminating perspective on the many currents that have the shaped the recent evolution of the university and its future.
I especially enjoyed the pieces on the lives and careers of notable figures like Rorty, Eagleton, and Ross—but also lesser known figures closer to Williams himself. The essays highlight the shift over the course of generations of methods, concerns, and disciplinary boundaries—and their connection to larger social and political conditions. For someone who came of age in the university in the nineties, during the denouement of theory, the book was effective at articulating what made it a more exciting place to be at then and why this is no longer true.
Finally, the book adds to a body of work on the corporatization of the university. Williams’ contribution is to focus on the role of student debt and its cascading consequences for both the academy and democracy itself. I was most intrigued by the argument about what debt teaches students, or the way it inclines them to think of their education primarily as a transaction, a service, a form of job training inseparable from the later career that will redeem the investment. His reflections on debt helped explain the recent rise of business as a major and the drop in enrolment in the humanities better than any other I’ve come across.
The book is unique for its focus on biographical and political aspects of academic life, but also for its readable style. Its primary strength is the subtlety and ingenuity of many of its insights. It gave me a richer understanding of the university and my experience in it.
3 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
What, Indeed, is an Intellectual
By tom abeles
This volume is a compilation of articles previously published by the author, many of which can be accessed via an Internet search. The author is a professor of English. Therefore, the volume appears to be more of a reader or part of a flipped classroom where these selectively serve as grounds for discussion.
There are two, serious, underlying themes running through the volume. These are stylistically academic, aimed at individuals who are in universities or are who have an affiliation or interest in the post secondary world. One of these is on the well-trodden path of increasing volume of literature on student debt both within the United States and globally.
Here Williams evokes the idea of “indenture” as he describes the student, compiling debt, to obtain a degree. He sees this as equivalent to the individuals in England who sold themselves into indenture in order to fulfill the dream of a better life in America. The student incurs the debt to arrive at the land of opportunity in the job markets while the English to access the new world’s untapped resources not accessible at home. “Student Debt and the Spirit of Indenture”, originally published in Dissent in 2008, seen from the vantage point of 2014, seems dated. It is a discussion piece in a class or a springboard for a subsequent essay. It should have been the lead article both to frame the issues of student debt and to be an original piece tying together the various themes around the definition of, and functions of, an intellectual.
In this volume, the value of the piece is severely attenuated by Williams own perceived indenture as a student, that of his daughter’s college debt and the larger, current, plight of the academic in the humanities. Williams’ myopia as he binds his efforts to define the idea of the “intellectual’ within the academic frame of the humanities. Again, the idea of the volume as a “reader” for a seminar or course releases him from having to define clearly the essence of the intellectual or to consider that the “intellectual” knows no such academic bounds. Sokal’s brilliant hoax published in Social Text, the collections of deep thinkers, many in the sciences often adumbrate the current academics in the humanities strivings to be recognized as intellectuals outside of their arena of expertise. HASTAC, an interdisciplinary community of thought leaders and students, proves much of the efforts of the humanities to define the “intellectual” to be a bridge too far. In fact HASTAC goes out of its way to bridge the differences.
Williams’ essays are unable to stray far from the academic paradigm of needing historic references from and about other scholars in general and academics in particular in order to validate their own writing. There are though a number of interesting contrasts in the collection including the comparison of Richard Rorty and Andrew Ross. But, while the analysis of these two scholars is of interest, Williams fails to point out the deep similarities of both including their willingness to step outside of the humanities, Rorty into politics and Ross, the polymath following his intellectual instincts to address topics that come across his desk, much in the spirit of the Social Text blog. “Bird on Fire” is but one example.
As Williams notes, most of his essays in this collection are “short” unlike the early intellectual works such as those of Isaiah Berlin, or even John Gray. Yet Williams’ articles lack disciplined rigor and intellectual density, and exhibit a dependency on the work of others. As noted above, this material best suits its purpose to begin conversations about the subject and do not provide the complexity to challenge the reader to a deeper reading of the articles themselves
Williams makes the point that journalist’s muse or god is Hermes, representing speed whereas scholars look to Apollo-the spread between the populist need for fleeting and the immediate while the academics favor that which provokes contemplative and critical analysis. Where the “intellectual” fits within that spectrum in an Internet driven world of materials, 24X7, is not clear in this volume and not even clear within the periods where most of Williams’ material is drawn.
Williams points out that Stanley Fish pushes for English scholars to stick to their own discipline and leave the political issues to those in other fields. Humanities scholars, threatened by the decreasing funding for their narrow disciplines, are hard pressed to not step outside of these confines and use their professional skills to address larger issues in much the same manner that those in science, technology and medicine find the need to cross these boundaries as both practioners and intellectuals.
Williams does not address the parochial nature of some in the humanities but rather plays the academic provocateur in this collection. Williams skirts the idea of the role of the “critic”. But, in the end, the volume serves more as an example of the critic rather than the intellectual.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Great job.
By Jim Schaefer
Great job.
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