During the apartheid period in South Africa – 1948 to 1994 – a lively intellectual culture of opposition emerged on some of the country’s university campuses and within the broader anti-apartheid movement…
Pierre Ryckmans - also known by his nom-de-plume, Simon Leys - was an inspirational teacher, the bête-noire of sinology and an outspoken public intellectual. A new biography tells his story.
Dr Joe Gumbula was a master-singer of Manikay, the exquisite Yolŋu tradition of public ceremonial song. While the songs contain incredible knowledge, scholars have rarely treated them as an intellectual tradition.
Donald Horne saw Australia as a lucky country that was squandering its luck. His bold ideas captured the nation’s imagination. But being a public intellectual is no longer easy. Who will come up with the next grand ideas?
Writing on Saturday in The Age, popular historian Paul Ham launched a frontal assault on “academic history” produced by university-based historians primarily for consumption by their professional peers…