Begging And Bragging: The Self And The Commodification Of Intellectual Activity
There are always risks involved in giving a lecture like this. There is a risk that, in assembling such a broad range of people from so many different parts of one’s life one ends up, in the attempt to interest and please everyone, boring or annoying the entire audience. There are the twin risks of under or over preparing: the first leading to drying up; the latter to the woodenness of delivery that comes from remembering (or, worse, reading) words having almost forgotten the meaning they were originally intended to convey. And of course there is the general occupational risk that every writer, teacher, preacher and politician takes, of simply making a prat of oneself. Being more of a fool than an angel, I have managed to add several further risks to these. I have chosen a title that, even allowing for...