Absent Minds: Intellectuals in Britain

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Absent Minds: Intellectuals in Britain is a 2006 book written by Stefan Collini and published by Oxford University Press.

Stefan Collini is an English literary critic and academic who is Professor of English Literature and Intellectual History at the University of Cambridge and an Emeritus Fellow of Clare Hall. He has contributed essays to such publications as The Times Literary Supplement, The Nation and the London Review of Books. He completed his undergraduate degree at Jesus College, Cambridge and his doctoral studies at Yale University.

Oxford University Press Publishing arm of the University of Oxford

Oxford University Press (OUP) is the largest university press in the world, and the second oldest after Cambridge University Press. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the vice-chancellor known as the delegates of the press. They are headed by the secretary to the delegates, who serves as OUP's chief executive and as its major representative on other university bodies. Oxford University has used a similar system to oversee OUP since the 17th century. The Press is located on Walton Street, opposite Somerville College, in the suburb Jericho.

Contents

Content

Collini's focus is upon the relative absence of the public intellectual from the long-term tradition of British culture (over the course of around 100 years), in contrast to another culture such as the French or 19th-century Russia (though as Collini himself notes, these comparisons are often highly questionable, with an outside perception of French intellectualism being countered by many French people looking at the situation from their own viewpoint).

At the beginning Collini asserts clearly that the concept of intellectualism is in itself enormously complex, and that any word such as that contains a multiplicity of meanings depending on what set of signifiers it is connected to. In this sense he explores the roots of the term itself, tracing them to their evolution into the English language from its origins in French in the nineteenth century and beyond. [1]

Perhaps the most striking aspect of the meanings with which the term is associated relates to the question of the value judgments applied as a corollary of them. The work explores the notion of the repudiation of the very concept of public intellectualism by certain key figures who might in fact be seen as exemplars of intellectualism such as T. S. Eliot, G. M. Trevelyan, Bertrand Russell, R. G. Collingwood, George Orwell, A. J. P. Taylor, and A. J. Ayer. Collini refers to this as a "paradox of denial" and analyses why such a situation should have arisen in the first place. In part, again, this has its roots in history: one aspect of the British antipathy to the overly abstract or theoretical is the patrimony of the French Revolution which was seen by many across the English Channel as being a phenomenon which was too abstract (driven by a discourse of the Rights of Man, for instance) in a way which led to a suspect gulf between rhetoric and reality. [2] Orwell in particular might be seen as the apogee of the curious mixture of intellectualism and anti-intellectualism that has been a hallmark of some of the greatest thinkers in British culture; people who are attracted to the realm of ideas and work well within it but at the same time are suspicious of abstract thinking that is not rooted in the empirical and the everyday.

T. S. Eliot English author

Thomas Stearns Eliot,, "one of the twentieth century's major poets" was also an essayist, publisher, playwright, and literary and social critic. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, in the United States, to a prominent Boston Brahmin family, he moved to England in 1914 at the age of 25, settling, working, and marrying there. He became a British subject in 1927 at the age of 39, renouncing his American passport.

G. M. Trevelyan historian

George Macaulay Trevelyan, was a British historian and academic. He was a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, from 1898 to 1903. He then spent more than twenty years as a full-time author. He returned to the University of Cambridge and was Regius Professor of History from 1927 to 1943. He served as Master of Trinity College from 1940 to 1951. In retirement, he was Chancellor of Durham University.

Bertrand Russell British philosopher, mathematician, historian, writer, and activist

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The book ends on an arguably optimistic note, asserting that despite the prevalence of celebrity culture and certain forms of superficiality in public life and discourse, there remains an urgent need (and possible supply) of public intellectualism, noting that there is a role for "issues of common interest [that are] considered in ways that are... more reflective or more analytical, better informed or better expressed". [3]

Overall it is argued that intellectualism is likely to be an important force in public life in the 21st century, though in British and Anglophone culture it might not always be referred to with such an appellation.

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References

  1. ↑ Collini, Stefan (2006). Absent Minds: Intellectuals in Britain: Intellectuals in Britain. Oxford University Press. pp. 15–20. Retrieved 15 July 2014.
  2. ↑ Macintyre, Ben (2011). The Last Word: Tales from the Tip of the Mother Tongue. Bloomsbury. ISBN   1408816849 . Retrieved 15 July 2014.
  3. ↑ Bostridge, Mark. "Absent Minds: Intellectuals in Britain by Stefan Collini". The Independent. Retrieved 15 July 2014.

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