This edited volume advances meaning-centered approaches to understanding the social construction of public intellectuals and their enduring influence on contemporary societies. The contributors reject reductionist perspectives that depict intellectuals and their ideas as mere byproducts of broader social forces. Instead, the volume champions a multidimensional approach that recognizes the semi-autonomy and causal power of intellectual discourses. At the core of this framework is the concept of dramatic intellectuals figures who navigate collective anxieties and hopes, shaping public discourse through master narratives of salvation and catastrophe, utopia and apocalypse. Through diverse case studies, the volume identifies key features of their master stories, including stark binaries, the social construction of meta-adversaries and meta-saviors, the mobilization of cultural traumas and ideological packs, and the Cassandra complex. Each chapter examines at least one pivotal dramatic intellectual within her cultural context, exploring how these figures shape public discourse and collective imagination. The volume covers a diverse range of intellectuals, including Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Frantz Fanon, Jean-Paul Sartre, Bertrand Russell, Noam Chomsky, Arne Naess, Ingemar Hedenius, Ayn Rand, Otis Eugene Gene Ray, Pedro Almodóvar, Agustín Laje, Slavoj Zizek, Jordan Peterson, and Giorgio Agamben. Beyond detailed case studies, the book lays the groundwork for new research agendas in the sociology of intellectuals. This book will be essential reading for scholars of cultural sociology.
Chapter 01: Who Are the Dramatic Intellectuals and What Do They Do? A Cultural-Sociological Analysis.- Part I: The Rise and Fall of Intellectuals.- Chapter 02: Dramatic Intellectuals.- Chapter 03: The Filmmaker as Public Intellectual: Pedro Almodóvar and the Post-Franco Cultural Explosion in Spain.- Chapter 04: Stop the Performance! Cancel Culture in the Contemporary Academy.- Part II: Intellectuals as Plot Writers: Narrating the World s Crisis.- Chapter 05: Satire, Conspiracy, Dystopia: Agustín Laje s Genre Work for the Latin American Reaction.- Chapter 06: Noam Chomsky and the Doomsday Clock.- Chapter 07: Lord Bertrand Russell, Prophet of the Industrial Apocalypse.- Part III: Mapping the World into Binaries.- Chapter 08: Carl Jung and the Search for the Sacred in the Realm of the Unconscious.- Chapter 09: Arne Naess and Ingemar Hedenius as Dramatic Intellectuals: Toward a Common Platform for Sociology of Knowledge and History of Knowledge.- Part IV: Hitting the Stage: Intellectuals Talk to the Audiences.- Chapter 10: Slavoj Zizek and Jordan Peterson as Celebrity-Icons.- Chapter 11: The Curious Reception of Giorgio Agamben s Pandemic Writings.- Chapter 12: Conclusion: The Drama Surrounding Intellectuals.
Javier Pérez-Jara is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy and East Asian Studies at the University of Seville, Spain, and a Faculty Fellow at Yale University s Center for Cultural Sociology, USA. His research spans cultural sociology and philosophy, focusing on the social construction of utopian and apocalyptic narratives, contemporary materialism, and the nature versus nurture debate.
Nicolás Rudas is a sociologist and Ph.D. candidate in Sociology at Yale University, USA. He is a Junior Fellow at the Center for Cultural Sociology at Yale. Nicolás s research interests encompass the intersections of culture, radicalism, and democracy.
