Representations of the Intellectual: The 1993 Reith Lectures - Edward Said

Category: Lecture, Political
Language: English
Keywords: Literary Essays Politics

Written by Edward Said
Read by Simon Manyonda
Format: M4B
Unabridged

Are 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 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.