Orwell, the academy and the intellectuals

George Orwell is a central figure in recent debates about the relationship between contemporary academics and their publics. Since the late 1980s, the notion of the public intellectual has spread through bestselling books, the use of the term by journalists, various 'top public intellectual' contests, academic research and even a PhD programme in the 'Public Intellectual'. Long before the currently popular term 'public intellectual' was ever used, Orwell helped create and then exemplified the role of the independent 'gadfly' intellectual who writes clearly and with conviction to a general educated audience. Recent commentators on the public intellectual have not emphasised two of the most important and interesting aspects of the reception of Orwell. Orwell was not an academic, but his ideas have entered into university debates and discussion in a very substantial way without there being an Orwell 'school of thought' or a formal canonisation of him as an academic 'founder' of a discipline. Second, Orwell is at the very centre of debates about the politics of the literary critic as an 'amateur' non-professionalised vocation in this age dominated by the influence of the university professor. Each of these two questions will be discussed below, before ending on some brief thoughts on how Orwell can help us think about the possibilities of what might be called the 'global public literary intellectual'.