Intellectuals in the 21st Century Reconfiguring Ideologies and Global Struggles Against the Elitization of Knowledge

Foreword by Peter Frankopan.

Introduction: Intellectuals in the Age of Politics: Reconfiguring Ideologies and Global Struggles Against the Elitization of Knowledge

Nicol A. Barria-Asenjo.

Section I: The Academy as Counter-ideology of the Academy: Towards a Reconfiguration of the Neoliberal Labyrinth.

1. Crossing the Walls Between Disciplines in the 21st Century

Nicol A. Barria-Asenjo and Jacques Rancière

2. Communisation, Materialisation and Transformation: Three Pending Tasks of Left-Wing Intellectuals in the 21st Century

David Pavón-Cuéllar

3. Five Duties of the Intellectual Today (and a Hegelian Riddle)

Bara Kolenc

4. For a Clitoral Revolution: Transfeminism as a Community of Jouissance.

Francesca R. Recchia Luciani.

5. Against Trench Warfare

Graham Harman

6. Nelly Richard and the Journal Revista de Crítica Cultural (1990-2008): The Construction of an Intellectual Scene

Elixabete Ansa Goicoechea

7. To Be Truly Decolonial

Sonya Surabhi Gupta

8. Urgent Engagement of Critical Intellectuals: The Foundation of Counter-Institutions

Gazela Pudar Draško and Andrea Perunović

9. Looking Through the Concave and Convex Mirrors: Centering Arab Indigeneity and Decolonizing Theory

Doaa Omran

10. The Untimely Intellectual

Mia Dragnic García

11. Lenin: the (Un)beloved Madman

Krzysztof Katkowski

12. This Shift to the Right Among Intellectuals was Foreseeable

Élisabeth Roudinesco.

Section II: A General Cartography of the 21st Century. Intellectuals Against the Elitization of Knowledge.

13. The Ambiguities of Populism and the Challenges of Psychoanalytic Political Theory in the 21st Century.

Nicol A. Barria-Asenjo and Yannis Stavrakakis.

14. Three Spaces of Practice in and against the University.

Ian Parker

15. The Mandate of the Marginal: Psychoanalytic Ethics between Duty and Responsibility

Dorotea Pospihalj

16. Tomás Moulian: Between Macchiavello and Lenin

Oscar Ariel Cabezas.

17. The Dialectic of Formalization and Philosophy Under Conditions.

Magdalena Germek.

18. Edward Said and the Intelligentsia’s Consciousness in the 21st Century

Ignacio López-Calvo.

19. Reactionarism Closes the Door. Revisiting Kant’s Aufklarung and The Conflict of the Faculties in the Age of Post-Truth

Simone Medina Polo et al.

20. “They do not move”: Salto Vitale in Fascizing Times

Shad Naved

21. The Social Embedding of Truth: The Role of the Intellectual and the Inevitability of the Ideological

Florian Maiwald

22. From Prophetic Intellectual to Democratic Intellectual

François Dosse

Section III: A Critical Turn against the Hybris of the Social Sciences and Humanities: The Subversive Power of Collectivity

23. The Liminal Time in Politics of the 21st Century: State, Common Sense, Society and Community.

Nicol A. Barria-Asenjo and Alvaro García-Linera

24. Sartre´s Engagement: Some Reflections on a Complex Concept in the Light of the Responsibility and Duty of Intellectuals in the 21st Century

Hernán Scholten, Jairo Gallo Acosta, and Nicol A. Barria-Asenjo.

25. Recognizing Our Global Indigeneities: Our Duty and Responsibility

Feroza Jussawalla

26. Theory and Demos: The “Red” Memory of French Philosophy in South Korea

Alex Taek-Gwang Lee

27. The Role of Progressive Thinkers Face to the Global Conflict

Andrzej Leder

28. The Diffidence of the Intellectual: Mediatory Uncertainty and Critical Consciousness

Robert T. Tally Jr.

29. The Rearguard Intellectual

Boaventura de Sousa Santos.

30. Intellectuals in Education: Emergencies and Ethical-political Challenges

Silvia Redón Pantoja and J. Félix Angulo.

31. Gramsci and Lukács in Dialogue: Revolutionary Legacies and the Role of the Intellectual Today

Lorena Acosta Iglesias

32. The Epistemology of Participation:  To Heal and Integrate the Indigenous Practices

Saji Varghese

33. Parrhesia in Contemporary Academy: Challenges and Potentials of Frank Speech

Silvia Kargodorian and Marisa Divenosa

34. Along a Shady Road: The Non-Listening

Eva Gerace Gemelli

Section IV: A New Era of Intellectuals' Effort: Between Historical Changes and Global Struggles 

35. Another Politics, a New Communism: Intellectual and Political Dialogues on the 21st Century and Beyond

Nicol A. Barria-Asenjo and Alain Badiou.

36. The Political Commitment of Intellectuals in the University of the 21st Century

Gonzalo Salas

37. The Intellectual and Technology

Stefan Höltgen and Jens Schröter

38. Intellectual Autonomy under the Crisis of Revolution: Post-Soviet Trajectories

Oleg Zhuravlev and Volodymyr Ishchenko.

39. The Deleuzo-Guattarian Century Has Come

Jun Fujita Hirose

40. What Comes After What Comes After?: Towards a ‘New Realism’

Timothy Appleton

41. Which Intellectuals for the New Time of Authoritarianisms?

Paula Biglieri and Gloria Perelló

42. Queer Eco-Feminist Counterpublics for the New Millennium

Ewa Majewska, Anna Nacher, and Zofia Łapniewska

43. A (Lacanian) Taxi Driver’s Notebook

Jan de Vos

44. Intellectuals Against Neocolonialism: Fostering Knowledge, Resistance, and Agency

Svitlana Biedarieva

45. The Metamodernity and Digimodernity Hypothesis at the Crossroads of the 21st Century

Ruben Balotol et al.

46. How to Reinvent Ethics: Our Role and Responsibility in a World Defaced?

Oscar Guardiola-Rivera

47. What is an Intellectual Today?

Am Johal

48. The Mystery of the Public Intellectual

Joseph Grim Feinberg

Biography

Nicol A. Barria-Asenjo is a researcher in social sciences and humanities at the Universidad de Los Lagos, Chile. She is the author of several books, essays, and scientific articles and the co-editor of Global Manifestos for the Twenty-First Century (Routledge, 2024), Psychoanalysis Between Philosophy and Politics (2023), and Political Jouissance (2024) with Slavoj Žižek.

‘It is impossible to overstate the significance of this collection of essays, which assembles an impressive array of intellectuals to reflect on the current status and responsibilities of the social sciences and humanities. A truly monumental achievement.’

Alenka Zupančič, Philosopher, Slovenia.

‘For some time now, since the crisis of the neoliberal system in 2008, we have been facing various episodes including the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, the hot period following the outbreak of the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza – not to mention the importance of the irruption of AI in the midst of the Trump phase of US domination. Faced with these events, humanity feels the need to take a reflective pause to find schemes by which to reorient itself. This reflective halt must meet two conditions: To be radical and to be cooperative, and thus capable of involving the world’s intelligentsia. Nicol A. Barria-Asenjo fulfils these conditions with this book and it will therefore be indispensable as a starting point for thinking about the future.’

José Luis Villacañas, Emeritus Professor of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain.

‘This remarkable collection is at once a map and a compass. Its authors represent multiple locations, generations, languages and critical traditions. With a powerful organizing voice from Chile, Prof. Barria-Asenjo generates a new geography of intellectual exchange and debate, which also offers a new territory of dialogue across disciplines from philosophy to critical theory, and from politics to psychoanalysis. Bringing together authors who refuse to accept their historical limits and contexts, this volume offers an unflinching claim on a variety of unclaimed and unsafe political futures.’

Arjun Appadurai, Emeritus Professor in Media, Culture and Communication, New York University, USA

‘In times of uncertainty, the Universidad de Los Lagos, from the south of the world, takes on the challenge of being a space where critical voices from the five continents converge to rethink the present and project possible futures. This book demonstrates that critical thinking and international collaboration are powerful tools to open horizons of justice, dignity, and emancipation amid the tensions of the 21st century. Intellectual work, understood as an act of responsibility and commitment, is not the heritage of an elite: it is nourished by plurality, dialogue, and difference. Bringing together thinkers of diverse trajectories constitutes a resistance against the elitization of knowledge and, at the same time, an invitation to reflect on the issues of our time.’

Oscar Garrido, University Chancellor, Universidad de Los Lagos, Chile.