| Abstract: | Controversy over the “decline” and “death” of the public intellectual came to Canada in response to Russell Jacoby's publication of The Last Intellectuals (1987). This research examines the diffusion of debates about public intellectuals in Canada through a detailed case study of every mention of the term “public intellectual” in 25 English language newspapers from 1987 to 2005. In a close analysis of the dynamics of public intellectual attribution, we show that debates in Canada were politically broader, less polarized, and less critical of the academy than in the United States, but they remained preoccupied by questions of national identity. |
