Overview

Against a backdrop of a hegemonic, global economic arrangement that has spawned astounding disparities in wealth, this book foregrounds seventeen intellectuals who are engaged in resisting corporate values and in promoting social justice and human dignity. Ranging from socially engaged professors with a track record in grassroots involvement to popular educators, the interviewees challenge the manufactured consent produced by armies of intellectuals organic to dominant ideologies. Public Intellectuals, Radical Democracy and Social Movements reminds us that strategic silence and/or indifference reproduces a common sense arrangement where critical reading of the world (Freire, 1987) is relegated to the periphery.

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9780820470764

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Reviews

An inspirational collection of interviews with some of the world's most courageous, committed and strategic popular educators and activists...thanks to Borg and Mayo's incisive questions we have honest, moving and analytically profound accounts of lives, contexts and strategies - a testimony of hope in popular education...from the toil and anguish of these brave women and men across the globe...redemptive in its scope... (Mary Darmanin, University of Malta) Borg and Mayo have created an utterly fascinating and unique window into the depths of learning, self, collectivity and political change. This book is one of the most important ever written on the role of agency, social movement learning and political transformation. This is the best product yet by two internationally respected scholars of critical pedagogy and popular education. Borg and Mayo bring readers inside some of the most powerful movements of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. Their dialogues with women and men who have given their lives to learning and struggle for a better world reveal new dimensions of pedagogy, common sense and love. (Budd Hall, former Dean of Education, University of Victoria, Canada; former Secretary-General of the International Council for Adult Education) This beautiful book of interviews organized in Gramsci's spirit is a powerful reminder of two facts: first, that public intellectuals of democratic persuasion exist in all global regions, no matter their particular political conditions. Second, that it is the clarity of vision and analysis of critical intellectuals at the periphery of the centers of cultural power which accelerates the drive for global transformations in a genuinely democratic key: a drive in solidarity for human dignity. (Renate Holub, University of California, Berkeley) I am immensely excited by this book. It is a timely response to the pressing need for a more critical engagement with ideas that expose neoliberalism's common sense as making no sense at all. Between the covers lies a feast of critical ideas from a diversity of people and places. All have a unity of purpose, ideas for realistic, practical utopias. The book compellingly takes us on a journey through the lived experiences of these authors, setting their life stories in their cultural and political time as the basis of their praxis. The particular niche for this book in mirroring critical dialogue through the written word is to stimulate ideas and action in the world. This is the latest work to emerge from Malta out of the Borg and Mayo partnership, and it excels. It is essential reading for all those who work toward a just and sustainable world. (Margaret Ledwith, University of Cumbria, United Kingdom) During the twentieth century, many predicted the demise of the public intellectual. These insightful interviews with seventeen committed women and men show that, in the twenty-first century, public intellectuals continue to be engaged in critique and construction all over the world...In 'Public Intellectuals, Radical Democracy and Social Movements', Borg and Mayo have assembled a great collection of thoughtful and inspirational dialogues...delicious reading for all those interested in building more democratic and just societies. (Daniel Schugurensky, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Canada) 'Public Intellectuals, Radical Democracy and Social Movements' is both intellectually challenging and politically inspiring. In documenting the intellectual thoughts and practices of a wide range of publicly engaged egalitarian intellectuals, including leading feminist activists, Borg and Mayo's work brings hope and encouragement to all those who struggle for social justice. The book also demonstrates the power of ideology and resistance, and the crucial role that scholarship plays in promoting a more egalitarian world when it is wedded to activism. (Kathleen Lynch, Professor of Equality Studies, University College School

Author Information

The Authors: Carmel Borg is Senior Lecturer in curriculum studies, critical pedagogy and parental issues in the Faculty of Education, University of Malta. He is the editor of the Journal of Maltese Education Research. His papers have appeared as book chapters or articles in a number of international refereed journals. His books include Gramsci and Education (co-edited with Joseph A. Buttigieg and Peter Mayo); Children and Youth at Risk: Narratives of Hope (co-edited with Colin Calleja) and Learning and Social Difference (co-authored with Peter Mayo). Peter Mayo is the author of numerous papers and several books on different aspects of lifelong learning. His books include Gramsci, Freire and Adult Education; Liberating Praxis: Paulo Freire's Legacy for Radical Education and Politics (AESA Critics Choice Award Winner) and Learning and Social Difference (co-authored with Carmel Borg). He worked in both initial and adult education prior to taking up his current appointment in adult education at the University of Malta.

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