| Popis: |
The purpose of this paper is to explore the relevance of one of Antonio Gramsci’s ideas, namely, intellectuals, to a different context from that in which his writings were conceived. It has been over seventy years since Gramsci’s death in 1937; perhaps the time is appropriate to question whether the ideas of one of the most ingenious thinkers and theorists of the twentieth century still has currency in the transformed circumstances of the twenty-first century. I aim, in fact, to prove the continuing relevance of Gramsci’s writings to a context other than early twentieth-century Italy by analysing, interpreting and assessing the ways in which his ideas on intellectuals still speak to us in the circumstances of apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa.Gramsci is important to South Africa as conditions in this country are notably similar to those prevailing in Italy in Gramsci’s time. I will show that South African intellectuals, like the Italian intellectuals described by Gramsci, also face numerous challenges. I will examine the views of various commentators on the roles, functions and challenges that South African intellectuals face in a post-apartheid society. |
