Description
In these conversations with thinkers in the public spotlight, based on the highly regarded Radio National series "Rethinking Australia: Intellectuals and the public culture", Robert Dessaix examines the notion of public intellectual life in Australia in the 1990s- its roots, its obsessions, its influence- and comes to some surprising conclusions.A broad sweep of issues is canvassed by a gathering of thinkers at the forefront of public intellectual life, ranging from Robert Hughes to Donald Horne, Robert Manne, Dennis Altman, Helen Garner, Phillip Adams, Henry Reynolds. Marcia Langton, Catharine Lumby, Raimond Galta, Margaret Wertheim, Peter Conrad and Meaghan Morris-among others.At a time when public values are being hotly debated, when there is increasing dissatisfaction about the role the academy should play, when media personalities are replacing thinkers as public commentators, and intellectual forums find little place in public life, who are we listening to and what are they telling us? Speaking Their Minds puts thinking in Australia firmly back on the agenda.A book based on the highly regarded Australian Radio National series, " Rethinking Australia: Intellectuals and the public culture". ISBN:9780733306532
