
Democracy's Children
Intellectuals and the Rise of Cultural Politics
John McGowan(Author)
Cornell University Press
Published on 25. April 2002
Book
Hardback
262 pages
978-0-8014-3973-5 (ISBN)
Description
How 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.
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.
Reviews / Votes
Democracy's Children 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) 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)
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Ithaca
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paper over boards
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
907 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8014-3973-5 (9780801439735)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
03/2018
Cornell University Press
€4.49
Available for download
Person
John 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.