Stanford Humanities Center
The Intellectual in a Time of Crisis
What is the responsibility of intellectuals in a world on fire?
By vocation scholars are motivated to bring clarity out of confusion, light out of darkness. Even in a time of crisis, however, the work of ideas is sometimes slow, narrowly focused, and inconvenient or difficult to access. While it always belongs to the present as part of the remaking of knowledge that happens generation by generation, such work may show its relevance to the current moment in ways that are visible or only latent, perhaps obscure. Where the public seeks clear-cut answers, intellectual work often delivers contradiction and complexity.
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Trivedi traces the evolution of crisis over the last hundred years or so, with a particular focus on how the concept has changed, especially in political philosophy contexts, in the first quarter of our present century.
Hall enumerates the many crises that currently "abound," and explores the role of the university in moments of crisis, both in the past and in our present moment.
Pantoja finds inspiration and a call for celebration in the examples of two pieces of early 20th century Black American poetry, as well as the 2026 Super Bowl halftime show.
How can the practice of mourning the self (in multiple senses), and learning to work with grief rather than through it, help teach us to fight for a better existence?
Shelby's lecture examines what role intellectuals from oppressed groups should play in the struggle for their group's liberation.
Stephen traces the trajectory of her work with speakers of various Mesocamerican Indigenous languages in Oregon over the past few years.
Using updates to the entry for octopus in a classic work of marine biology as an example, Cohen explores how people and the physical planet are intertwined, and argues that their entanglement opens the opportunity to bridge long-standing disciplinary divisions.
In a brief analysis of the Colloquy's title through the lens of syntax and poetics, Atkins considers the answerability of the crisis at the heart of the discussion.
Kim and Akcan explore the proposed infrastructures for warehouses as this administration’s planned extension of the prison industrial complex, where warehouses for storages become warehousing for humans. What does it mean, and look like, to move from the noun “warehouse” to the verb “to warehouse”?
What might it mean, in our respective fields and lines of work, to act as “a catalyst who sets the wheels in motion”? Seck discusses a quote by Senegalese writer and filmmaker Ousmane Sembène about the role of the artist or intellectual in times of revolution.
A meditation on a work of sociology from 1989 Croatia discusses different types of intellectuals' silences, the reasoning behind them, and their effect on the societies in which they take place.
Hughes considers anti-Vietnam War protests alongside more recent anti-war protests, both at Stanford University, in her meditation of the role of the intellectual in crisis.
Johnston considers the writings and life of Socrates, along with the transformation of the ancient Greek word krisis into the modern English crisis, to examine the role of the critic, or critical thinker, in society.
Zamora reflects on his academic journey, and the importance of his community origins to both his scholarship and his life.
Woloch analyzes George Orwell's use of the pithy one liner, and finds in them both motivation and caution for responding to a sense of urgency.
