Demise of the Public Intellectual

24 September 2006 at 4:50 pm Peter G. Klein Leave a comment

| Peter Klein |

Mark Oppenheimer bemoans the demise of “public intellectuals,” scholars who write for the general reader or for academic researchers in other specialty areas. These intellectuals — people who write for periodicals like The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Book Review, Dissent, Partisan Review, Commentary, The New Criterion, and First Things — are still around, but few in academia are aware of them. Among Oppenheimer’s suggestions:

I have long believed that admissions committees at graduate schools should work very differently. Instead of asking for letters of recommendation from undergraduate thesis advisers, admissions committees should try to figure out if an applicant is an intellectual. They should ask: “What do you read outside your proposed field of study? What are your favorite books? Where would you most like to travel, and why? What periodicals do you read?” If a student has no aspirations to travel, doesn’t seem to read much except within her undergraduate major, and shows no interest in academic debates — well, that’s a bad candidate for academe.

Of course, in today’s climate of increasing hyper-specialization, such students are probably at a competitive disadvantage for completing the PhD, finding a job, getting tenure, etc. (Thanks to Teppo for the pointer to Oppenheimer.)