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 considered crucial questions of elitism, identity politics, and the balkanization of popular discourse in relation to the role of the public intellectual. Students explored 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 began with “Politics and the English Language”—George Orwell’s classic essay on language that obfuscates, rather than illuminates. Students then studied 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 continued with outliers like Susan Sontag and urban studies pioneer Jane Jacobs. The course concluded 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.