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Through a close reading of the lives and works of some of the greatest intellectuals of recent times, Adam Shatz asks: do writers have an ethical imperative to question injustice? How can one remain a dispassionate thinker when involved in the cut and thrust of politics? And, in an age of horror and crisis, what does it mean to be a committed writer?Shatz interrogates the major figures of twentieth and twenty-first century thought and finds within their lives and work the roots of our present intellectual and geopolitical situation. Charting the role of the committed intellectual through the work of Jean-Paul Sartre on the Algerian War and Edward Said's lifelong solidarity with the Palestinian people, to Fouad Ajami's role as the'native informant'for pro-intervention cause in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, alongside philosophers and critics Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida and Claude L�vi-Strauss and the novelists Michel Houllebecq and Richard Wright, each struggled to reconcile their writing and their politics, their thought and their commitments. Writers and Missionaries is an erudite and incisive work of intellectual elucidation and biographical enquiry that demands that we interrogate anew the relation of thought and action in the struggle for a more just world.

What does it mean to be a politically committed writer?Through a close reading of the lives and works of some of the greatest intellectuals of recent times, Adam Shatz asks: do writers have an ethical imperative to question injustice? How can one remain a dispassionate thinker when involved in the cut and thrust of politics? And, in an age of horror and crisis, what does it mean to be a committed writer?Shatz interrogates the major figures of twentieth and twenty-first century thought and finds within their lives and work the roots of our present intellectual and geopolitical situation. Charting the role of the committed intellectual through the work of Jean-Paul Sartre on the Algerian War and Edward Said's lifelong solidarity with the Palestinian people, to Fouad Ajami's role as the'native informant'for pro-intervention cause in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, alongside philosophers and critics Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida and Claude Lévi-Strauss and the novelists Michel Houllebecq and Richard Wright, each struggled to reconcile their writing and their politics, their thought and their commitments. Writers and Missionaries is an erudite and incisive work of intellectual elucidation and biographical enquiry that demands that we interrogate anew the relation of thought and action in the struggle for a more just world.

Bri Lee, best-selling and award-winning author of Eggshell Skull, asks Who gets to be smart? in this forensic and hard-hitting exploration of knowledge, power and privilege.'Debate done with absolute verve, with eloquence and generosity'CHRISTOS TSIOLKAS, author of Damascus'Fascinating, eye-opening... a sharp wake-up call'FLEX MAMI / LILLIAN AHENKAN, author of The Success Experiment'Thoughtful, surprising and exquisitely written. Bri Lee once again challenges us to confront the structures that shape, and restrict, our understanding of the world.'MADDISON CONNAUGHTON, editor of The Saturday PaperIn 2018 Bri Lee's brilliant young friend Damian is named a Rhodes Scholar, an apex of academic achievement. When she goes to visit him and takes a tour of Oxford and Rhodes House, she begins questioning her belief in a system she has previously revered, as she learns the truth behind what Virginia Woolf described almost a century earlier as the'stream of gold and silver'that flows through elite institutions and dictates decisions about who deserves to be educated there. The question that forms in her mind drives the following two years of conversations and investigations: who gets to be smart?Interrogating the adage,'knowledge is power', and calling institutional prejudice to account, Bri once again dives into her own privilege and presumptions to bring us the stark and confronting results. Far from offering any'equality of opportunity', Australia's education system exacerbates social stratification. The questions Bri asks of politics and society have their answers laid bare in the responses to the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation, COVID-19, and the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020.

Viel ist über den Intellektuellen in seiner Rolle als Wortführer des Geistes geschrieben worden. Sein Stil und Gebaren aber wurden dabei kaum gewürdigt. Hannelore Schlaffers Essays rücken sie ins Zentrum der Aufmerksamkeit.

Extrait :'Il n'est point d'espèce dans l'univers dont les deux extrêmes soient séparés par un aussi grand intervalle, que celui qu'a jeté la nature entre les deux extrémités de l'espèce humaine. Quelle distance immense entre un sauvage grossier qui peut à peine combiner deux ou trois idées, et un génie tel que Descartes et Newton!'À PROPOS DES ÉDITIONS LIGARANLes éditions LIGARAN proposent des versions numériques de qualité de grands livres de la littérature classique mais également des livres rares en partenariat avec la BNF. Beaucoup de soins sont apportés à ces versions ebook pour éviter les fautes que l'on trouve trop souvent dans des versions numériques de ces textes. LIGARAN propose des grands classiques dans les domaines suivants : • Livres rares• Livres libertins• Livres d'Histoire• Poésies• Première guerre mondiale• Jeunesse• Policier

In these impassioned and inspiring essays, based on his 1993 Reith Lectures, Edward Said explores what it means to be an intellectual.'Said is a brilliant and unique amalgam of scholar, aesthete and political activist.... He challenges and stimulates our thinking in every area.'--Washington Post Book WorldAre intellectuals merely the servants of special interests or do they have a larger responsibility? In these wide-ranging essays, one of our most brilliant and fiercely independent public thinkers addresses this question with extraordinary eloquence. Said sees the the intellectual as an exile and amateur whose role it is'to speak the truth to power'even at the risk of ostracism or imprisonment. Drawing on the examples of Jonathan Swift and Theodor Adorno, Robert Oppenheimer and Henry Kissinger, Vietnam and the Gulf War, Said explores the implications of this idea and shows what happens when intellectuals succumb to the lures of money, power, or specialization.