The Disappearing Liberal Intellectual - Hardcover

Lott, Eric

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0465041868 ISBN 13: 9780465041862

Publisher: Basic Books, 2006

Synopsis

What ever happened with that liberal intellectual "boom" of the 1980s and 1990s? In The Disappearing Liberal Intellectual , Eric Lott- author of the prizewinning Love and Theft - shows that the charter members of the "new left" are suffering from a condition that he has dubbed "boomeritis." Too secure in their university appointments, lecture tours, and book deals, the once rising stars of the liberal elite- including Richard Rorty, Todd Gitlin, Michael Lind, Paul Berman, Greil Marcus, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.- have drifted away from their radical moorings toward the political centre. At once a chronicle of recent intellectual life and a polemic against contemporary liberalism's accommodations of the conservative status quo, The Disappearing Liberal Intellectual eviscerates the complacency that has seeped into the politics of the would-be vanguard of American intellectual thought. Lott issues a wake-up call to the great public intellectuals of our day and challenges them to reinvigorate political debate on campus, in their writing, and on the airwaves.

About this title

Synopsis:

An award-winning scholar challenges the intellectuals of the baby boom generation to shake off a decade's worth of complacency and reclaim the mantle of social justice. What ever happened with that liberal intellectual "boom" of the 1980s and 1990s? In "The Disappearing Liberal Intellectual", Eric Lott - author of the prize-winning "Love and Theft" - shows that the charter members of the "new left" are suffering from a condition that he has dubbed "boomeritis". Too secure in their university appointments, lecture tours and book deals, the once rising stars of the liberal elite have drifted away from their radical moorings toward the political centre. At once a chronicle of recent intellectual life and a polemic against contemporary liberalism's accommodations of the conservative status quo, "The Disappearing Liberal Intellectual" eviscerates the complacency that has seeped into the politics of the would-be vanguard of intellectual thought. Lott issues a wake-up call to the great public intellectuals of the day and challenges them to reinvigorate political debate on campus, in their writing and on the airwaves.

About the Author:

Eric Lott is a Professor of English at the University of Virginia. He is the author of the award-winning Love and Theft: Blackface, Minstrelsy, and the American Working Class, which won the 1994 Avery O. Craven Award from OAH, the first annual MLA Prize for a First Book, and the 1994 Outstanding Book on the Subject of Human Rights by the Gustavus Myers centre for the Study of Human Rights. Lott's writing has appeared in numerous publications, including the Village Voice, The Nation, Transition, and American Quarterly. He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.

About this edition

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0465041868
• ISBN 13: 9780465041862
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 272