Table Of ContentR
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Can we think our way out of a crisis? At a time of economic
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collapse and beleaguered morale, do intellectuals have E
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something to offer? Can knowledge and reflec-
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tion be brought outside the academy and into
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the wider public sphere? Or are the views
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of economists, novelists, playwrights,
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sociologists, historians, political scientists
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and civil servants dismissed and ignored?
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Are we anti-intellectual? These essays
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explore the ways in which critical thinking,
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imagination and ideas can add to a public I
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conversation, as we try to understand crisis REFLECTIONS ON CRISIS
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and prevent its recurrence.
The role of the public intellectual
edited by Mary P. Corcoran and Kevin Lalor
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ROYAL IRISH ACADEMY RIA
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Reflections on Crisis: The Role of the Public Intellectual
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reflections
on crisis:
The Role of the Public Intellectual
edited by
Mary P. Corcoran
and Kevin Lalor
RIA
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Reflections on Crisis: The Role of the Public Intellectual
First E-published 2014
by Royal Irish Academy
19 Dawson Street
Dublin 2
www.ria.ie
Text copyright © 2012 Royal Irish Academy
The authors have asserted their moral rights.
ISBN 978-1-908996-50-3
All rights reserved. The material in this publication is
protected by copyright law. Except as may be permitted
by law, no part of the material may be reproduced
(including by storage in a retrieval system) or transmit-
ted in any form or by any means; adapted; rented or lent
without the written permission of the copyright owners.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. A CIP
catalogue record for this book is available from the
British Library.
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CONTENTS
vi Acknowledgements
vii Note on the Academy Committee for Social Sciences
3 Introduction: Challenging Intellectuals
Mary P. Corcoran
15 Within and Beyond These Walls:
University Academics as Public Intellectuals
Donncha O’Connell
29 The Assault on Intellectualism in Irish Higher Education
Tom Garvin
41 Public Intellectuals in Times of Crisis:
The Role of Academia
Frances Ruane
55 Reflections on the Public Intellectual’s Role in a Gendered Society
Pat O’Connor
77 Public Intellectuals and the ‘Crisis’:
Accountability, Democracy and Market Fundamentalism
Liam O’Dowd
103 Notes
106 Bibliography
116 About the contributors
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The Academy Committee for Social Sciences wishes to
thank the Royal Irish Academy for supporting and facilitat-
ing the 2009 half-day symposium: ‘Public Intellectuals in
Times of Crisis: What Do They Have to Offer?’, which
led to this publication. Quotations reproduced in this book
were excerpted from a transcript of the discussion.
The Committee is particularly grateful to the National
University of Ireland Publications Comm ittee for providing
a grant for this publication. The Committee would like to
thank Professor Mary P. Corcoran, Professor Vani Borooah,
Dr Kevin Lalor and Mr Justice Adrian Hardiman for their
efforts in organising the symposium and in bringing the
publication to fruition. The Committee also wishes to thank
the speakers at the symposium and the subsequent contrib-
utors to this volume, including Professor Tom Garvin, Mr
Donncha O’Connell, Professor Pat O’Connor, Professor
Liam O’Dowd and Professor Frances Ruane. The Com-
mittee is indebted to the staff of the Royal Irish Academy,
especially Dr John Maguire, Programme Manager of the
Committee, and Ms Ruth Hegarty, Ms Helena King and
Ms Rosie Duffy.
The views expressed here are those of the authors and do
not necessarily reflect those of the Academy Committee
for Social Sciences, or the Royal Irish Academy.
vi
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THE ACADEMY COMMITTEE FOR SOCIAL
SCIENCES 2008 12
–
The Academy Committee for Social Sciences is one of sev-
enteen multidisciplinary committees of the Royal Irish
Academy concerned with the organisation and develop-
ment of their respective disciplines and with providing an
interface between Ireland and the relevant international
bodies. It has a remit to pursue strategic and policy devel-
opment within the social sciences on an all-Ireland basis.
The Committee has been involved in organising a number
of conferences and symposia, including a lecture by
Professor Charles Bosk on ‘Problems, Puzzles and
Paradoxes in Research Ethics’ (2009) and the publication
of a number of policy reports including the report on
‘Evaluating Research Performance in Economics and
Social Sciences’ (2007).
Members
Professor Vani Kant Borooah, MRIA (Chair)
Professor Mary P. Corcoran
Professor David Dickson, MRIA
Professor Tom Garvin, MRIA
Dr David Getty
The Hon. Mr Justice Adrian Hardiman, MRIA
Dr Karen Keaveney
Dr Kevin Lalor (Secretary)
Dr Pete Lunn
Dr Fiona Magowan
Professor Siniša Maleševic˝, MRIA
Dr Orlaigh Quinn
Dr Theresa Reidy
Dr Kevin Sweeney
Professor Brendan J. Whelan
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Programme Manager
Dr John Maguire
Conference Organising Committee
Professor Vani Borooah
Dr Kevin Lalor
Professor Mary P. Corcoran
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‘
‘I can’t remember who said it to me but the difference between this
crisis and the ones in the 1950s and 1980s is that this time it is every-
where else as well. Back in the 1950s we were on our own. We were
brilliantly original in having a disaster while everyone else was having a
boom. This time we are sharing our glory with everyone else but we are
’
just being a bit better at it than the others. There is nowhere to run this
time, there is nowhere to emigrate to. The Americans are in a fix too.’
TOM GARVIN
‘We need to be self-critical. Could we have done better? How could
we have done better? We pushed the debate along, but we failed ulti-
mately for a number of reasons. We had the wrong strategy, or perhaps
even no strategy as public intellectuals. We had polite but not terribly
‘
politic tactics. We had poor logistics and poor support as public intel-
lectuals. We did not go out of our way to build a wider consensus.’
BRIAN LUCEY
‘What has led to the decline of public intellectuals is the same thing that
has lead to the decline of pubs. We used to have a lot more ‘third spaces’
where people could move beyond class, beyond gender, beyond their
workaday norm, and maybe look ’at their private lives too from another
space entirely. But that type of encounter is happening less and less.’
DECLAN KIBERD
