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…
Simon Leys intervened on a broad range of topics: Mother Teresa, the continuing relevance of George Orwell, conservative values, and the role of the university in the pursuit of truth.
Black Inc
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.
A sacred paperbark tree at Djiliwirri, the most sacred homeland of the Indigenous elder and public intellectual, Dr Joe Gumbula, in 2004.
Aaron Corn
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 country that had got lucky, but was squandering its luck.
Shutterstock.com
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?
The publishing of popular history is driven not by how scholars write, but by what readers are willing to buy.
Erik Mauer
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…