Thinking in public: A Forum

Abstract

Part of a symposium on the role of the intellectual in public life. The writer answers six questions, which relate to her audience, the various cultures within American cultural life, the role of contemporary American culture in sustaining and inspiring her work, whether the object of her inquiry or her critical method has changed, how she measures the success of her work, and whether she feels that contemporary writers and critics have lost their cultural authority. She concludes that intellectuals should follow and write clearly on the issues about which they are passionate, which in her case are global justice, the eradication of group hatred, and the amelioration of the living conditions of women and the poor.