Chapter 8: Radical Scholar As Public Intellectual In A Marketplace of Ideas

My journey to being a 50-year-old, tenured academic at a selective liberal arts university began with a foundational person, Lynn Harrill (Thomas, 2003), whose life and career have weaved through my life and career. Along with my parents, he can easily be characterized as the catalyst to my becoming a radical scholar. In fact, central to my journey have been a series of foundational educators who opened the doors to my being a radical, building to this discussion about the tensions among democracy, expertise, and the public intellectual. Here is my call for the teacher/scholar/public intellectual as radical in the marketplace of ideas.