I
CLIMBING THE WALLS: THE INTELLECTUAL AS ACADEMIC

The next four chapters ponder the consequences of the almost universal location of contemporary American intellectuals on college campuses. Chapters 1 and 2 are frankly autobiographical and take up questions of “the profession” and teaching respectively. Institutional forms and dilemmas dominate my attention as I contemplate what I am doing, where, and with whom. The next two chapters are more wide-ranging. Chapter 3 offers a series of observations about the changed landscape in which intellectuals work now, as compared to thirty years ago. It surveys from above, if you will, the transformations that the previous two chapters view at ground level. The final chapter of this part considers the impact that intellectuals positioned within the academy wish to have as contrasted to the influence I think they can realistically expect to wield. The question of cultural authority taken up in chapter 4 calls forth the first intimations of the pluralism that is further developed throughout part 2.