Representations of the Intellectual

Publisher: Fitzcarraldo Editions
Publish date: 15 January 2026
Pages: 120
Binding: Paperback
Language: English

Subjects: History, World, Literary Collections, Essays, Philosophy, Political, Social

What does it mean to be an intellectual at a time when a large proportion of the population is in the information business? Are intellectuals merely the specialized servants of special interests or do they have a larger responsibility? In these wide-ranging essays, which were originally delivered as part of the BBC's prestigious Reith Lectures, one of our most brilliant and fiercely independent public thjnkers addresses those questions with extraordinary eloquence. Edward Said sees the intellectual as an exile and amateur whose role it is "to speak the truth to power" even at the risk of ostracism or imprisonment. Drawing on the examples of Jonathan Swift and Theodor Adorno, Robert Oppellheimer and Henry Kissinger, Vietnam and the Gulf War, Said explores the implications of this idea and shows what happens when intellectuals succumb to the lures of money, power, or specialization. Representations of the Intellectual embodies the very values that it relentless honesty, rigor of thought and conscience, and a sublime disdain for dogma.