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Murakami, Obama, Sarkozy: What is an Intellectual?

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posted on 2023-06-08, 07:43 authored by Benedict O'Donohoe
The focus of this chapter is on the three lectures that Sartre gave in Japan during his visit there with Simone de Beauvoir in autumn 1966, "Apologia for the Intellectual". Following the contours of Sartre's own enquiry, it asks first what was the critical understanding and reception of his lectures? Next, to what extent can the politician be an intellectual, and vice-versa? Finally, in what sense is the writer an intellectual? By analysing certain key passages in Sartre's texts, I address the second of these questions with passing reference to Presidents Sarkozy and Obama. The third question about the writer-qua-intellectual focuses on the hybrid text "Underground" by Haruki Murakami, in which the well-known contemporary novelist appears to be re-casting himself in the mould of the public intellectual, much like Sartre himself (whom Murakami admires) had done half-a-century earlier. Indeed, Murakami's strategy seems to exemplify the role of the writer-as-intellectual just as Sartre defined it in his third Japan lecture. Thus, the chapter weaves together the strands of Sartre, ideology and politics in the appropriate context of a modern Japanese cultural phenomenon.

History

Publication status

  • Published

Publisher

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Page range

149-163

Pages

15.0

Book title

Jean-Paul Sartre: Mind and Body, Word and Deed

ISBN

9781443829496

Department affiliated with

  • Sussex Centre for Language Studies Publications

Notes

This chapter grew out of a paper given at Rikkyo University, Tokyo, during the annual conference of the Japanese Society for Sartre Studies (AJES) in July 2009, within the frame of AHRC-sponsored "workshops" in Tokyo and London, under the over-arching title of "Sartre, Ideology and Politics".

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Editors

J-P Boulé

Legacy Posted Date

2012-02-06

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