Berkley Center

Public intellectuals must develop a writing style that negotiates between high and low cultures, addressing themselves to audiences composed of educated non-specialists, as well as erudite insiders. This course considers crucial questions of elitism, identity politics, and the balkanization of popular discourse in relation to the role of the public intellectual. Students will explore selected moments in twentieth-century American cultural criticism as well as the practice of writing criticism in an accessible, yet intellectually rigorous manner. The course begins with “Politics and the English Language”—George Orwell’s classic essay on language that obfuscates, rather than illuminates. Students will then study critics such as H.L. Mencken and Edmund Wilson, the New York Intellectuals (Alfred Kazin, Dwight Macdonald), the Second Women’s Movement (Betty Friedan), and the Civil Rights Movement (James Baldwin). It will continue with outliers like Susan Sontag and urban studies pioneer Jane Jacobs. The course concludes with the writings of contemporary public intellectual Ta-Nehisi Coates. This course (ENGL-288) was taught by Maureen Corrigan as a Doyle Seminar in spring 2021. Please refer to the current course catalog for an up-to-date description of the course.