Intellettuali

In the year 1898, columnist Georges Clemenceau defined ‘intellectuals’ as a composite and large group of illustrious personalities, academics, artists, architects, jurists, doctors, and writers – of the calibre of Émile Zola, Anatole France, Marcel Proust – whom on the pages of the newspaper “L’Aurore” animated a discussion around the “Dreyfus affair” and the need to defend the values ​​of justice and truth publicly. Although the intellectual figure itself was certainly not new, Clemenceau, in some way, consecrated the birth of a term which later entered the common jargon, identifying a social and political force which, with his militancy, undeniably characterised the entire course of Western culture. Introduced by the illuminating philosophical reflection of Emanuele Coccia, Bauman and Bongiovanni reconstruct the concept’s history, traits, transformations, and complex connection with power.