Intellectual Citizenship and the Problem of Incarnation

“Who has the right to know?” asks Jean-Francois Lyotard. “Who has the right to eat?” asks Peter Madaka Wanyama. This book asks: “what does it mean to be a responsible academic in a ‘northern’ university given the incarnate connections between the university’s operations and death and suffering elsewhere?” Through studies of the “neoliberal university” in Ontario, the “imperial university” in relation to East Timor, the “chauvinist university” in relation to El Salvador, and the “gendered university” in relation to the Montreal Massacre, the author challenges himself and the reader to practice intellectual citizenship everywhere from the classroom to the university commons to the street. Peter Eglin argues that the moral imperative to do so derives from the concept of incarnation. Herethe idea of incarnation is removed from its Christian context and replaced with a political-economic interpretation of the embodiment of exploited labor. This embodiment is presented through the material goods that link the many’s compromised right to eat with the privileged few’s right to know.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements Prologue: Fishing for an Academic Life Chapter 1: Incarnation and Intellectual Citizenship Chapter 2: Incarnation and the Neoliberal University Chapter 3: Incarnation and the Imperial University Chapter 4: Incarnation and the Chauvinist University Chapter 5: Incarnation and the Gendered University Epilogue: Corrupting an Academic Life Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Peter Eglin is professor of sociology at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, where he has taught courses in human rights, crime, and ethnomethodology for many years. He is the co-author or co-editor with Stephen Hester of A Sociology of Crime (1992), Culture in Action (1997), and The Montreal Massacre: A Story of Membership Categorization Analysis (2003). Eglin strives for a world liberated from capitalism and strong states.

Review :
Peter Eglin’s remarkable study of issues of conscience and their relationship to topics in the social sciences is a rich resource for discussion and argument. Even those who may disagree with Eglin’s conclusions will, I believe, respect the cogency and lucidity of the presentation of his case. A truly thought-provoking contribution by a major participant in the fields of his expertise. Highly recommended.