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OverviewHow do American intellectuals try to achieve their political and social goals? By what means do they articulate their hopes for change? John McGowan seeks to identify the goals and strategies of contemporary humanistic intellectuals who strive to shape the politics and culture of their time. In a lively mix of personal reflection and shrewd analysis, McGowan visits the sites of intellectual activity (scholarly publications, professional conferences, the classroom, and the university) and considers the hazards of working within such institutional contexts to effect change outside the academy. Democracy's Children considers the historical trajectory that produced current intellectual practices. McGowan links the growing prestige of ""culture"" since 1800 to the growth of democracy and the obsession with modernity and explores how intellectuals became both custodians and creators of culture. Caught between fears of culture's irrelevance and dreams of its omnipotence, intellectuals pursue a cultural politics that aims for wide-ranging social transformations. For better or worse, McGowan says, the humanities are now tied to culture and to the university. The opportunities and frustrations attendant on this partnership resonate with the larger successes and failures of contemporary democratic societies. His purpose in this collection of essays is to illuminate the conditions under which intellectuals in a democracy work and at the same time to promote intellectual activities that further democratic ideals. Full Product DetailsAuthor: John McGowanPublisher: Cornell University Press Imprint: Cornell University Press Dimensions: Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.50cm , Length: 22.90cm Weight: 0.907kg ISBN: 9780801439735ISBN 10: 0801439736 Pages: 262 Publication Date: 25 April 2002 Recommended Age: From 18 years Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate , Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly Format: Hardback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: Out of stock  The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available. Table of ContentsReviews"""Democracy's Children: Intellectuals and the Rise of Cultural Politics is a meditation on how intellectuals might try to achieve their political and social goals in the early twenty-first century.""-William G. Tierney, Academe, Winter 2003. ""John McGowan's Democracy's Children is divided into two parts. The first deals with the intellectual as academic, writer, critic, and teacher. The second deals with broad cultural and historical concerns, especially in relation to modernity, and ends with a sketch of ' pragmatic pluralism.' ... This book coheres because of his insights into the nature of the intellectual, especially the university-based literary intellectual's profession (the domain that the author knows best), and also by a ubiquitous ethical concern.""-Nicholas O. Pagan, Eastern Mediterranean University, Southern Humanities Review 37:3, Summer 2003 ""McGowan attempts to yoke together a humanist belief in universals-to know those facts that make our world unjust and that are necessary for us to fight for true democracy-with a belief that reality is indeterminate and socially constructed.""-Frederick Luis Aldama, University of Colorado at Boulder, H-Amstdy, April 2004 ""Democracy's Children is one of the more distinguished recent examples of that curious academic genre, the book of linked essays. It is also one of the most consistently provocative and contrarian academic books I have yet come across.""-Susan Read Baker, South Atlantic Review, Fall 2004 ""Democracy's Children is smart, readable, and valuable in its range of attention and insights. John McGowan's book is an important contribution to some of the most significant debates occurring in the humanities.""-Evan Watkins, University of California, Davis ""Democracy's Children offers powerful and convincing arguments about a wide variety of critical topics, and it is superb in making a case for what we might call 'pluralism' all the way through. In fact we can view this book as an experiment in finding a voice and stance exemplary of democratic ideals. Or, better, of American democratic ideals since the authorial voice share's Twain's and Melville's intensely sceptical view of those who claim to speak for the people. Few critics are as intelligently and entertainingly wary as McGowan. And no one I know manages to integrate the personal and the analytic as well as he does. We feel McGowan's intellectual needs, share his disappointments as he tracks contemporary debates, and find ourselves relieved and even thrilled when he finds paths for pragmatist thinking that enrich our appreciation of what intellectuals can do in contemporary America.""-Charles Altieri, University of California Berkeley ""Fair-minded but passionately independent, commonsensical but throwing off sparks of originality on every page, McGowan is the ideal tour guide through the murkier concepts and debates of contemporary cultural politics.""-Bruce Robbins, Columbia University" Democracy's Children: Intellectuals and the Rise of Cultural Politics is a meditation on how intellectuals might try to achieve their political and social goals in the early twenty-first century. -William G. Tierney, Academe, Winter 2003. Democracy's Children: Intellectuals and the Rise of Cultural Politics is a meditation on how intellectuals might try to achieve their political and social goals in the early twenty-first century. -William G. Tierney, Academe, Winter 2003. John McGowan's Democracy's Children is divided into two parts. The first deals with the intellectual as academic, writer, critic, and teacher. The second deals with broad cultural and historical concerns, especially in relation to modernity, and ends with a sketch of ' pragmatic pluralism.' ... This book coheres because of his insights into the nature of the intellectual, especially the university-based literary intellectual's profession (the domain that the author knows best), and also by a ubiquitous ethical concern. -Nicholas O. Pagan, Eastern Mediterranean University, Southern Humanities Review 37:3, Summer 2003 McGowan attempts to yoke together a humanist belief in universals-to know those facts that make our world unjust and that are necessary for us to fight for true democracy-with a belief that reality is indeterminate and socially constructed. -Frederick Luis Aldama, University of Colorado at Boulder, H-Amstdy, April 2004 Democracy's Children is one of the more distinguished recent examples of that curious academic genre, the book of linked essays. It is also one of the most consistently provocative and contrarian academic books I have yet come across. -Susan Read Baker, South Atlantic Review, Fall 2004 Democracy's Children is smart, readable, and valuable in its range of attention and insights. John McGowan's book is an important contribution to some of the most significant debates occurring in the humanities. -Evan Watkins, University of California, Davis Democracy's Children offers powerful and convincing arguments about a wide variety of critical topics, and it is superb in making a case for what we might call 'pluralism' all the way through. In fact we can view this book as an experiment in finding a voice and stance exemplary of democratic ideals. Or, better, of American democratic ideals since the authorial voice share's Twain's and Melville's intensely sceptical view of those who claim to speak for the people. Few critics are as intelligently and entertainingly wary as McGowan. And no one I know manages to integrate the personal and the analytic as well as he does. We feel McGowan's intellectual needs, share his disappointments as he tracks contemporary debates, and find ourselves relieved and even thrilled when he finds paths for pragmatist thinking that enrich our appreciation of what intellectuals can do in contemporary America. -Charles Altieri, University of California Berkeley Fair-minded but passionately independent, commonsensical but throwing off sparks of originality on every page, McGowan is the ideal tour guide through the murkier concepts and debates of contemporary cultural politics. -Bruce Robbins, Columbia University Author InformationJohn McGowan is John W. and Anna H. Hanes Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the author of Postmodernism and its Critics, also from Cornell University Press, and Representation and Revelation: Victorian Realism from Carlyle to Yeats. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |
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