ABSTRACT
In the past fifteen years, the debate about the role that university educators might play as critically engaged public intellectuals has grown increasingly hostile. To elaborate further on the university as a crucial public sphere and the role of teachers as public intellectuals, the chapter analyzes how some cultural studies scholars have attempted to address some of the same issues that conservatives and liberals have used to criticize higher education. In addition, it argues that the absence of any serious discussion of pedagogy in cultural studies and in the debates about higher education has narrowed significantly the possibilities for redefining the role of educators as public intellectuals and of students as critical citizens capable of governing rather than simply being governed. The backlash against critical intellectuals and educators has gained substantial currency under Reaganism and with the increasing rise of corporate culture in the United States; it is indicative of one dimension of the crisis that higher education is facing.
