The Generation of Public Intellectuals

Corporate Universities, Graduate Employees and the Academic Labor Movement

Bibliographic Data

ID11230052
AuthorsDaniel A Gilbert (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA, corresponding author)
Year2013
Volume38
Issue1
Pages32-46
Publication date2013-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLabor Studies Journal (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0160-449X • E-ISSN: 1538-9758
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0160449x13490407
OpenAlexW2002949350
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited7

Observers from a variety of quarters have remarked in recent years that contemporary civic life lacks the great public minds that helped to shape the public discourse of earlier generations. The most pressing crisis facing intellectual life in the United States in the age of the corporate university, however, is not a lack of great public thinkers but rather a quickly eroding public sphere, of which university teachers and researchers are key members. Examining struggles over and emerging from the conditions of contemporary academic work, this article recasts the public intellectual debate. It argues that the academic labor movement, in responding to the conditions of the corporate university and broader challenges to the public sphere, contains powerful models of public intellectual practice. In particular, the article highlights graduate employee unionism as critical public intellectual work

Political science · Politics · Public life · Public relations · Public sector · Public sphere · Sociology · Variety (cybernetics · Work (physics · Academic Freedom and Politics · Law · Rhetoric and Communication Studies · Social Media and Politics

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