Definition
A well-known, intelligent, learned person whose written works and other social and cultural contributions are recognized not only by academic audiences and readers, but also by many members of society in general.
In Context
- ""I have always taken the role of public intellectual very, very seriously," said Mark Crispin Miller, 51, a professor of media ecology at New York University. "A public intellectual is someone who engages in intellectual pursuits, airs intellectual concerns in a way the broad, literate public can understand. The tradition thrives in Europe, but the American public does not have the same expectation of its intellectuals.""
- "As a sociologist, Raper concerned himself with everything from the legal impediments African Americans faced to the way blacks and whites arranged themselves around the hot stove in a small-town general store. He was among the first generation of southern public intellectuals, an engaged academic in a region where anti-intellectualism had a long and healthy tradition."
- "After years of teaching 18th century British literature, in 1975 he crossed from academic to public intellectual with The Great War and Modern Memory, a seminal book examining how World War I, by its scope and immense carnage, caused a disillusionment that plagued Western society for decades."