Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Preface: Seeing like a Muslim Cosmopolitan
- Part I Places
- Part II Personas
- 4 Cosmopolitan Muslim Public Intellectuals
- 5 Hijabis as Purveyors of Muslim Cosmopolitanism
- Part III Politics
- Conclusion: The Vision of Muslim Cosmopolitanism
- Bibliography
- Index
4 - Cosmopolitan Muslim Public Intellectuals
from Part II - Personas
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 May 2017
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Preface: Seeing like a Muslim Cosmopolitan
- Part I Places
- Part II Personas
- 4 Cosmopolitan Muslim Public Intellectuals
- 5 Hijabis as Purveyors of Muslim Cosmopolitanism
- Part III Politics
- Conclusion: The Vision of Muslim Cosmopolitanism
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
This chapter is concerned with the advent of what I call ‘cosmopolitan Muslim public intellectuals’. The term ‘public intellectuals’ has been used in various ways. The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu described public intellectuals as those who demonstrate a degree of ‘freedom with respect to those in power, the critique of received ideas, the demolition of simplistic either-ors, respect for the complexity of problems’. Edward Said, in turn, argued that public intellectuals are ‘the nay-sayers, the individuals at odds with their society and therefore outsiders and exiles so far as privileges, power, and honors are concerned’. Barbara Misztal has listed some of the professional positions occupied by these intellectuals including ‘scientists, academics in the humanities and the social and political sciences, writers, artists and journalists who articulate issues of importance in their societies to the general public’. Public intellectuals, according to Misztal, are distinguished by their creativity and civil courage.
Perhaps the most authoritative definition of public intellectuals and their representations is provided by Richard Posner, who sees a public intellectual as a person who
expresses himself in a way that is accessible to the public, and the focus of his expression is on matters of general public concern of (or inflected by) a political or ideological cast. Public intellectuals may or may not be affiliated with universities. They may be full-time or part-time academics; they may be journalists or publishers; they may be writers or artists; they may be politicians or officials; they may work for think tanks; they may hold down ‘ordinary’ jobs. Most often they either comment on current controversies or offer general reflections on the direction or health of society. In their reflective mode they may be utopian in the broad sense of seeking to steer the society in a new direction or denunciatory because their dissatisfaction with the existing state of the society overwhelms any effort to propose reforms. When public intellectuals comment on current affairs, their comments tend to be opinionated, judgmental, sometimes condescending, and often waspish. They are controversialists, with a tendency to take extreme positions. Academic public intellectuals often write in a tone of conscious, sometimes exasperated, intellectual superiority. Public intellectuals are often careless with facts and rash in predictions.
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- Muslim CosmopolitanismSoutheast Asian Islam in Comparative Perspective, pp. 77 - 101Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2017