Patrick Baert
I grew up in Brussels and have lived in England since 1987. In the last couple of years, my interest has focused on the intersection between culture, intellectuals and politics. Prior to this, I have written on philosophy of the social sciences, the history of social theory, and time in social theory.
My current work deals with the following:
1) Existence theory: an attempt to develop a new sociological theory centred premised on the idea that individuals organise their lives around key existential milestones.
2) Positioning theory: an attempt to develop a new approach for the study of intellectual life.
3) A sociological theory of political taboos, especially in the context of the academy.
Supervisors: Rom Harre
Address: Sociology Department
Faculty of Human, Social and Political Sciences
University of Cambridge
Free School Lane
Cambridge CB2 3RQ
England
My current work deals with the following:
1) Existence theory: an attempt to develop a new sociological theory centred premised on the idea that individuals organise their lives around key existential milestones.
2) Positioning theory: an attempt to develop a new approach for the study of intellectual life.
3) A sociological theory of political taboos, especially in the context of the academy.
Supervisors: Rom Harre
Address: Sociology Department
Faculty of Human, Social and Political Sciences
University of Cambridge
Free School Lane
Cambridge CB2 3RQ
England
less
Related Authors
InterestsView All (22)
Uploads
Books by Patrick Baert
Why has an ostensibly progressive and avowedly anti-fascist political party taken up Schmitt’s ideas? The puzzle only deepens when we learn of Schmitt’s links with Francisco Franco’s dictatorship. In The Dark Side of Podemos?, Booth and Baert explain why Schmittian theory resonated with Podemos’ founders. In doing so, the authors position Podemos and the ideas that guide it within the context of recent Spanish history and ongoing politics of memory, revealing a story about how personal and political narratives have combined to produce a formidable political force.
This enlightening monograph will appeal to undergraduates and postgraduates, as well as postdoctoral researchers, interested in fields such as Politics, Political Theory and Sociology. It will also be relevant to those curious about contemporary Spanish politics, the nature of populism, the future of the European left, or Carl Schmitt and his links with Spain.
The Existentialist Moment retraces Sartre s career and provides a compelling new explanation of his meteoric rise to fame. Baert takes the reader back to the confusing and traumatic period of the Second World War and its immediate aftermath and shows how the unique political and intellectual landscape in France at this time helped to propel Sartre and existentialist philosophy to the fore. The book also explores why, from the early 1960s onwards, in France and elsewhere, the interest in Sartre and existentialism eventually waned. The Existentialist Moment ends with a bold new theory for the study of intellectuals and a provocative challenge to the widespread belief that the public intellectual is a species now on the brink of extinction.
"For too long analyses of intellectual disputes and campus politics have stood in the shadows of Bourdieu's Homo Academicus with its structural reading of fault lines. Conflict in the Academy at last moves the game forward with a pithy and yet impressively detailed case study. Building on recent cultural sociology it convincingly demonstrates that deep meanings and contingent performances also play a part. Making a significant contribution to the sociology of intellectuals and ideas this concise book punches well above its weight." - Professor Philip Smith, Yale University, USA
"When asked why academic disputes were so bitter, Henry Kissinger famously replied that it was because so little was at stake. Scholars have often been involved in intellectual debates whose intensity seems to far exceed their objective importance, much to the bewildered entertainment of those not involved. Yet, academics have spent far less time actually studying these conflicts. In this perceptive and highly original new study, Marcus Morgan and Patrick Baert dissect the dynamics of academic disputes. They have produced a work that will be a reference point for future study in this area." - Professor Anthony King, Exeter University, UK
Examining an intramural conflict that erupted within the English Faculty at the University of Cambridge in the early 1980s, this book develops a theoretical analysis of disputes as they unfold within the academy. It shows how broad structural changes taking place within the English higher education system at the time reverberated through to local contexts, investigates the reception of theories originating in other countries and other disciplines upon English Studies in the United Kingdom, as well as demonstrating the significance of local institutional factors in structuring the form and content of the dispute. Capturing a key moment in the development of modern English Studies it reveals the social performance lying at the heart of public controversy and develops a new theory for analysing the workings and tribulations of intellectual life.
Papers by Patrick Baert
however, acknowledge that contemporary societies have ushered in an unprecedented element of fluidity and ambiguity in certain areas of the life experience, and the aim of this current contribution is to reflect on these relatively recent cultural shifts in the context of existential milestones. So, what follows is an attempt to further articulate existence theory in light of
contemporary developments and also to articulate the distinctiveness of contemporary modernity in a novel fashion. Indeed, the main objective of this chapter is to explore elements of existence theory in the context of contemporary conditions. We will argue that contemporary conditions tend in certain traceable ways to undermine the erstwhile rigidity of existential milestones and possibly disrupt some of the previous societal assumptions regarding timing, sequencing, and articulation of those milestones. Before discussing these unique features of contemporary societies in relation to those milestones, it is worth first outlining the main tenets of existence theory.
Why has an ostensibly progressive and avowedly anti-fascist political party taken up Schmitt’s ideas? The puzzle only deepens when we learn of Schmitt’s links with Francisco Franco’s dictatorship. In The Dark Side of Podemos?, Booth and Baert explain why Schmittian theory resonated with Podemos’ founders. In doing so, the authors position Podemos and the ideas that guide it within the context of recent Spanish history and ongoing politics of memory, revealing a story about how personal and political narratives have combined to produce a formidable political force.
This enlightening monograph will appeal to undergraduates and postgraduates, as well as postdoctoral researchers, interested in fields such as Politics, Political Theory and Sociology. It will also be relevant to those curious about contemporary Spanish politics, the nature of populism, the future of the European left, or Carl Schmitt and his links with Spain.
The Existentialist Moment retraces Sartre s career and provides a compelling new explanation of his meteoric rise to fame. Baert takes the reader back to the confusing and traumatic period of the Second World War and its immediate aftermath and shows how the unique political and intellectual landscape in France at this time helped to propel Sartre and existentialist philosophy to the fore. The book also explores why, from the early 1960s onwards, in France and elsewhere, the interest in Sartre and existentialism eventually waned. The Existentialist Moment ends with a bold new theory for the study of intellectuals and a provocative challenge to the widespread belief that the public intellectual is a species now on the brink of extinction.
"For too long analyses of intellectual disputes and campus politics have stood in the shadows of Bourdieu's Homo Academicus with its structural reading of fault lines. Conflict in the Academy at last moves the game forward with a pithy and yet impressively detailed case study. Building on recent cultural sociology it convincingly demonstrates that deep meanings and contingent performances also play a part. Making a significant contribution to the sociology of intellectuals and ideas this concise book punches well above its weight." - Professor Philip Smith, Yale University, USA
"When asked why academic disputes were so bitter, Henry Kissinger famously replied that it was because so little was at stake. Scholars have often been involved in intellectual debates whose intensity seems to far exceed their objective importance, much to the bewildered entertainment of those not involved. Yet, academics have spent far less time actually studying these conflicts. In this perceptive and highly original new study, Marcus Morgan and Patrick Baert dissect the dynamics of academic disputes. They have produced a work that will be a reference point for future study in this area." - Professor Anthony King, Exeter University, UK
Examining an intramural conflict that erupted within the English Faculty at the University of Cambridge in the early 1980s, this book develops a theoretical analysis of disputes as they unfold within the academy. It shows how broad structural changes taking place within the English higher education system at the time reverberated through to local contexts, investigates the reception of theories originating in other countries and other disciplines upon English Studies in the United Kingdom, as well as demonstrating the significance of local institutional factors in structuring the form and content of the dispute. Capturing a key moment in the development of modern English Studies it reveals the social performance lying at the heart of public controversy and develops a new theory for analysing the workings and tribulations of intellectual life.
however, acknowledge that contemporary societies have ushered in an unprecedented element of fluidity and ambiguity in certain areas of the life experience, and the aim of this current contribution is to reflect on these relatively recent cultural shifts in the context of existential milestones. So, what follows is an attempt to further articulate existence theory in light of
contemporary developments and also to articulate the distinctiveness of contemporary modernity in a novel fashion. Indeed, the main objective of this chapter is to explore elements of existence theory in the context of contemporary conditions. We will argue that contemporary conditions tend in certain traceable ways to undermine the erstwhile rigidity of existential milestones and possibly disrupt some of the previous societal assumptions regarding timing, sequencing, and articulation of those milestones. Before discussing these unique features of contemporary societies in relation to those milestones, it is worth first outlining the main tenets of existence theory.
terms but rather as an opportunity to challenge deep-seated presuppositions ( Baert 2005 ). As will become apparent later, The Existentialist Moment , for instance, confronts the widespread belief that the sociology and history of intellectuals should uncover the structural causes or motives underlying intellectual interventions and that their ability to reveal them is a key criterion for measuring their success. Instead, I argue for a focus on the consequences of those interventions. Toward the end of my chapter, I open up the discussion by mentioning what I think are some of the core methodological advantages and disadvantages of my suggested approach.
xes: hierarchy versus equality, generality versus expertise, passion versus distance, and the individual versus the collective. We show how these four tensions were present at the outset of the modern notion of the intellectual, and have regularly come to the surface in the course of the twentieth and early twenty first century. Secondly, we contend that the same four tensions have taken on new forms, potentially affecting how intellectuals engage with the public. To develop this point, we focus on recent technological developments that enable novel intellectual interventions in the public sphere, in particular interactive online blogging and micro-blogging platforms.
Keywords: intellectuals, public intellectuals, Dreyfusard intellectuals, social media, blogging, positioning theory
"
the rise of Jean-Paul Sartre as a public intellectual in the 1940s;
the import of ‘French theory’ into the study of English literature in Cambridge in the 1970s and ‘80s;
the intellectual basis of the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa in the 1970s.
Abstract: Examining an intramural conflict that erupted within the English Faculty at the University of Cambridge in the early 1980s, this book develops a theoretical analysis of disputes as they unfold within the academy. It shows how broad structural changes taking place within the English higher education system at the time reverberated through to local contexts, investigates the reception of theories originating in other countries and other disciplines upon English Studies in the United Kingdom, as well as demonstrating the significance of local institutional factors in structuring the form and content of the dispute. Capturing a key moment in the development of modern English Studies it reveals the social performance lying at the heart of public controversy and develops a new theory for analysing the workings and tribulations of intellectual life.
This event takes place at the conference "The Social Sciences since 1945 in East and West : Continuities, Discontinuities, Institutionalization and Internationalization."
story as a platform to introduce a broader sociological theory about intellectuals and their work.
2 March 2015, 5-7pm Room SG1, CRASSH, 7 West Road, Cambridge
What is the relation between intellectual life and performance? What does it mean to speak about the performance or the performativity of intellectuals and experts? How does a concern for these ‘dramas of ideas’ intersect with the positioning of intellectuals in the public sphere? If we understand performance as a form of ‘enacting knowledge’, how does this shed new light on what we understand as knowledge-production and therefore intellectual life?
Prof Patrick Baert & Dr Marcus Morgan (both Sociology, Cambridge)
Jonas Tinius (Social Anthropology, Cambridge)
Chair: Floris Schuiling (Music, Cambridge)
This presentation explores the usefulness of positioning theory for studying the diffusion of intellectual interventions (e.g. books, articles, lectures and blogs). Our central underlying idea is that intellectual interventions allow the authors or speakers to position themselves within the intellectual or political arena, whilst also positioning others. As in many circumstances insufficient evidence is available to gauge the motives or intentions underlying the intellectual interventions, this perspective focuses on the effects of the positioning. Positioning will have an impact not only on the symbolic and institutional recognition of the author(s) involved, but also on the diffusion of the ideas. We elaborate on the strengths of this perspective, compared to other approaches to the sociology of ideas and intellectual history. In order to demonstrate the fruitfulness of this perspective, we use it to shed light on shifts in public engagement of intellectuals from the early twentieth century until now.