Mariners, Renegades, and Castaways: C.L.R. James and the Radical Postcolonial Imagination

Abstract

What is the nature and role of intellectual work in modern society? How is the role of the intellectual to be defined and discussed? What is the relation ship of the intellectual to popular culture, popular life, and the wish fulfill ment of the masses? These are critical questions that the postcolonial intel lectual, C.L.R. James, addressed in his theoretical writings. This article offers an assessment of James, focusing sharply on his discussion of the intellectual activism and the way in which the intellectual is represented in his work. The author attempts to draw out the insights of James in detail, pointing to their internal tensions and contradictions but also to their value and relevance to issues of intellectual work on the terrain of the contempo rary public sphere, where the discourse on intellectual activism has all but atrophied in recent years.