Collini, Stefan 1947-

PERSONAL:

Born September 6, 1947. Education: Attended Cambridge University and Yale University.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Cambridge University, Faculty of English, 9 West Rd., Cambridge CB3 9DP, England. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Cambridge University, Cambridge, England, professor of intellectual history and English literature, fellow of Clare Hall; has held visiting appointments in Canberra, Caracas, Paris, and Princeton.

WRITINGS:

Liberalism and Sociology: L.T. Hobhouse and Political Argument in England, 1880-1914, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1979.

(With Donald Winch and John Burrow) That Noble Science of Politics: A Study in Nineteenth-Century Intellectual History, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1983.

Arnold, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1988.

(Editor) John Stuart Mill, On Liberty; with the Subjection of Women; and Chapters on Socialism, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1989.

Public Moralists: Political Thought and Intellectual Life in Britain, 1850-1930, Clarendon Press (Oxford, England), 1991.

(Editor) Umberto Eco, Richard Rorty, Jonathan Culler, and Christine Brooke-Rose, Interpretation and Overinterpretation, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1992.

(Editor) Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy and Other Writings, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1993.

Mathew Arnold: A Critical Portrait, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1994, new edition, 2008.

English Pasts: Essays in Culture and History, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1999.

(Editor and contributor, with Richard Whatmore and Brian Young) History, Religion, and Culture: British Intellectual History, 1750-1950, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 2000.

(With Richard Whatmore and Brian Young) Economy, Polity, and Society: British Intellectual History, 1750-1950, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 2000.

Absent Minds: Intellectuals in Britain, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2006.

Common Reading: Critics, Historians, Publics, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2008.

Contributor to periodicals, including the Times Literary Supplement and the London Review of Books.

SIDELIGHTS:

Stefan Collini has written widely on nineteenth- and twentieth-century intellectual history and literature. In his Public Moralists: Political Thought and Intellectual Life in Britain, 1850-1930, Collini examines the moral sensibilities and cultural assumptions that influenced political debate in the Victorian era and early-twentieth-century Great Britain. The author describes how a distinct cultural nationalism arose around language and literature as he focuses on the role of intellectuals as public moralists.

Collini also examines how formal political theory at the time related to widely held social attitudes and aesthetic judgments. H-Net Review Web site contributor Daniel Gorman noted: "Given that Collini is more interested in the English intellectual as a public figure, participant in the various explicit and implicit controversies of the age, it is natural that the focus here is not so much upon the accepted ‘texts’ of the period, but rather the full range of the intellectual's public engagement."

English Pasts: Essays in Culture and History is a collection of sixteen essays by Collini written over two decades. In his essays, some of which the author reworked and amplified for the book, Collini examines various issues concerning contemporary literature, such as the idea of a "national past," the functions of literary criticism, and the role of the historian as a social critic. Martin Hewitt, writing in History: Review of New Books, felt that the "arguments are important, provoking, and driven along by an acerbic wit," adding: "It will be read with profit by scholars, students, and anyone else interested in the questions it raises." Referring to the essays as "brilliant, subtle and erudite," a contributor to the Economist went on to write: "Essays in the best sense, he says at one point, are ‘extended meditations or explorations that are not easily reducible to a briefly stated argument.’ His own are essays in the best sense."

In his 2006 book Absent Minds: Intellectuals in Britain, the author explores intellectualism in Great Britain over the years, from the concept of the intellectual to the idea of specialization and celebrity culture. According to Spectator contributor Jonathan Mirsky: "What is on his [Collini's] mind, in this big, difficult and often worthwhile book is the question of intellectuals in 20th-century Britain: the ways in which the existence, nature and role of intellectuals have been thought about and argued over, including claims about their absence or comparative insignificance."

Collini, however, does not just focus on British intellectualism. He also provides a comparative analysis of intellectualism in Great Britain with intellectualism in the United States, France, and other European countries, challenging in the process the long-held assumptions about British intellectualism being exceptional. In addition, he discusses whether or not British intellectuals are on the point of becoming extinct and challenges the notion that there are no "real" intellectuals in Great Britain today. "One of the aims of Collini's magisterial study is to challenge the assumption that the British are a peculiarly anti-intellectual race," wrote Terry Eagleton in the New Statesman. As the author explores various avenues concerning British intellectualism, he discusses such noted intellectual figures as Julien Benda, T.S. Eliot, George Orwell, and Edward Said. In a review of Absent Minds on the Social Affairs Unit Web site, David Womersley remarked that "this is not a book which pursues a single line of cumulative argument across its whole length," adding: "It is instead a book of a kind not necessarily less rigorous, but much more enjoyable to read." John W. Osborne commented in Clio: "His book probes the complex texture of twentieth-century British life of the mind. Its five hundred pages are packed with information, interpretation, and opinion."

Collini has also served as editor or coeditor of numerous books. As editor of History, Religion, and Culture: British Intellectual History, 1750-1950, published in 2000, Collini and coeditors Richard Whatmore and Brian Young present a series of essays by contributors who examine the place of religion in nineteenth-century cultural and political life, beginning with an eighteenth-century historiography that includes Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. In the essays, contributors examine such areas as British attitudes towards India's native religions, the Victorian perception of English political and military leader Oliver Cromwell, and the religious sensibility of John Ruskin, the nineteenth-century art and social critic. They also examine how scientific ideas about development and change relate to assumptions about the idea of the "national community." Mark Bevir, writing in the Journal of Ecclesiastical History, reported that the editors "have gathered together an all-star cast, and it does not disappoint," adding: "The essays collected here cover a remarkably diverse range of topics in the intellectual history of modern Britain."

Economy, Polity, and Society: British Intellectual History, 1750-1950 is a companion volume to History, Religion, and Culture that was also edited by Collini, Whatmore, and Young. In this volume, contributors address British intellectual history in terms of eighteenth-century intellectuals' attempts to come to terms with the nature of "commercial society" and all that it entails, from the notions of self and political liberty to the ideas behind economic progress. Contributors explore the adaptations of and responses to the Enlightenment legacy resulting from the intellectual revolution that occurred in Western culture from the mid-seventeenth century on through the eighteenth century. The essays provide examples of the growing conflict between moral values and economic thinking and progress. Noting that Economy, Polity, and Society is "a valuable and useful book," Stephen L. Keck went on to write on the H-Net Review Web site that, as a whole, the "essays raise a host of new questions about both key figures … and also about the ways in which historians now think about the intellectual history of modern Britain." In a review of both History, Religion, and Culture and Economy, Polity, and Society, H-Net Review contributor H.S. Jones noted that the books are "underlined by some nifty editorial work that emphasizes the connections between the two volumes rather than their disjunction."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Historical Review, June, 1980, review of Liberalism and Sociology: L.T. Hobhouse and Political Argument in England, 1880-1914, p. 631; February, 1985, Bruce L. Kinzer, review of That Noble Science of Politics: A Study in Nineteenth-Century Intellectual History, p. 134; December, 1992, Reba N. Soffer, review of Public Moralists: Political Thought and Intellectual Life in Britain, 1850-1930, p. 1524.

Canadian Journal of History, April, 2000, Christopher Kent, review of English Pasts: Essays in Culture and History, p. 169.

Choice, May, 1992, R.A. Soloway, review of Public Moralists, p. 1450; November, 1992, K. Tololyan, review of Interpretation and Overinterpretation, p. 459.

Clio, summer, 2007, John W. Osborne, review of Absent Minds: Intellectuals in Britain, p. 462.

Comparative Studies in Society and History, July, 1988, Philippa Levine, review of That Noble Science of Politics, p. 575.

Economist, June 19, 1999, review of English Pasts, p. 8; June 19, 1999, "Englishness," p. 8.

English Historical Review, October, 1992, Michael Freeden, review of Public Moralists, p. 970.

English Studies, December, 1993, Paul Dean, review of Interpretation and Overinterpretation, p. 536; September, 1995, Odin Dekkers, review of Matthew Arnold: A Critical Portrait, p. 494.

Ethics, October, 1981, Richard H. Hagman, review of Liberalism and Sociology, p. 184.

Guardian (London, England), March 21, 2006, "The Ideas Interview: Stefan Collini."

Hedgehog Review, spring, 2007, Ashley Rogers Berner, review of Absent Minds, p. 92.

History: Review of Books, winter, 2000, Martin Hewitt, review of English Pasts, p. 66.

History: The Journal of the Historical Association, February, 1993, S.J.D. Green, review of Public Moralists, p. 139; January, 2001, Jeremy Black, review of English Pasts, p. 81.

History Today, March, 1983, review of Liberalism and Sociology, p. 43; April, 1984, Roy Porter, review of That Noble Science of Politics, p. 55; July, 1992, Edward Norman, review of Public Moralists, p. 56; October, 2000, Peter Ghosh, review of British Intellectual History, 1750-1950, p. 55; July, 2006, Mark Bevir, review of Absent Minds, p. 63.

Independent (London, England), March 3, 2006, Fred Inglis, review of Absent Minds.

Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, fall, 1993, Lydia Goehr, review of Interpretation and Overinterpretation, p. 632.

Journal of British Studies, April, 2007, Michael Bentley, review of Absent Minds, p. 412.

Journal of Ecclesiastical History, January, 2004, Mark Bevir, review of History, Religion, and Culture: British Intellectual History, 1750-1950, p. 204.

Journal of Economic Literature, December, 1985, review of That Noble Science of Politics, p. 1785.

Journal of Modern History, September, 1994, Peter Allen, review of Public Moralists, p. 594.

Journal of the History of Ideas, April, 1992, review of Public Moralists, p. 342; July, 1992, review of Interpretation and Overinterpretation, p. 522; July, 2007, James F. English, "Hazards of the Higher Debunkery," review of Absent Minds, p. 363.

London Review of Books, November 6, 2003, Stefan Collini, "HiEdBiz."

Modern Language Review, January, 1990, Sylvere Monod, review of Arnold, p. 156; April, 1994, Jeremy Tambling, review of Interpretation and Overinterpretation, p. 431.

Nation, May 29, 2006, Richard Vinen, review of Absent Minds, p. 53.

National Review, November 1, 1985, Dan Ritchie, review of That Noble Science of Politics, p. 74.

New Criterion, September, 2006, James Piereson, "The Rise & Fall of the Intellectual," review of Absent Minds, p. 52.

New Republic, September 17, 1984, review of That Noble Science of Politics, p. 33.

New Statesman, April 3, 2006, Terry Eagleton, "The Truth Speakers," review of Absent Minds.

New Statesman & Society, November 1, 1991, Christopher Harvie, review of Public Moralists, p. 46.

New York Review of Books, February 2, 1995, Bernard Arthur Owen Williams, review of Interpretation and Overinterpretation, p. 33.

Nineteenth-Century Literature, June, 1989, review of Arnold, p. 127; December, 1993, review of Public Moralists, p. 410.

Notes and Queries, June, 1993, E.B. Greenwood, review of Interpretation and Overinterpretation, p. 268; June, 1993, E.B. Greenwood, review of Interpretation and Overinterpretation, p. 268.

Political Studies, March, 2001, Philip Schofield, review of History, Religion, and Culture, p. 127.

Political Theory, August, 1993, Joseph Hamburger, review of Public Moralists, p. 547.

Quadrant, January 1, 2007, Peter Coleman, "Wiping Off the English Grin: In the Age of Terrorism," review of Absent Minds, p. 117.

Society, March-April, 1980, Scott G. McNall, review of Liberalism and Sociology, p. 90.

Spectator, April 1, 2006, Jonathan Mirsky, "La Trahison Des Clercs," review of Absent Minds, p. 57.

Times Educational Supplement, November 25, 1988, review of Arnold, p. 29.

Times Higher Education Supplement, July 2, 1999, Richard Hoggart, review of English Pasts, p. 25; July 13, 2001, David Runciman, review of Economy, Polity and Society, p. 28; July 13, 2001, David Runciman, review of History, Religion, and Culture, p. 28; April 14, 2006, Winston Fletcher, "Cleverness That Will Not Speak Its Name," review of Absent Minds, p. 20.

Times Literary Supplement, January 13, 1989, Chris Baldick, review of Arnold, p. 43; January 31, 1992, John Vincent, review of Public Moralists, p. 6; July 30, 1999, Paul Smith, review of English Pasts, p. 24; November 3, 2000, John R. Vincent, review of Economy, Polity, and Society: British Intellectual History, 1750-1950, p. 26; November 3, 2000, John R. Vincent, review of History, Religion, and Culture, p. 26.

Victorian Poetry, summer, 1989, review of Arnold.

Victorian Studies, spring, 1990, Jerold J. Savory, review of Arnold; fall, 1992, Louis B. Zimmer, review of Public Moralists, p. 107.

Weekly Standard, May 21, 2007, Edward Short, "Brains Distrust; a Man of the Left Who Is Really, Really Mad," review of Absent Minds.

ONLINE

British Academy Web site,http://www.britac.ac.uk/ (February 15, 2008), brief profile of Stefan Collini.

H-Net Review,http://www.h-net.org/ (February 15, 2008), H.S. Jones, reviews of Economy, Polity, and Society and History, Religion, and Culture; Stephen L. Keck, review of Economy, Polity, and Society; Daniel Gorman, review of Public Moralists.

Institute of Historical Research Web site,http://www.history.ac.uk/ (February 15, 2008), author's response to Dan L. LeMahie, review of Absent Minds.

Philadelphia Bulletin,http://www.thebulletin.us/ (May 17, 2006), Danel Johnson, "Minds Both Absent and Present."

Social Affairs Unit Web site,http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/ (February 15, 2008), David Womersley, "Why Are English Intellectuals So Obsessed with the Absence of English Intellectuals?"

University of Cambridge, Faculty of English Web site,http://www.english.cam.ac.uk/ (February 15, 2008), faculty profile of Stefan Collini.