| Abstract: | This essay examines how the increasing dependence of the academy, specifically communication studies, on corporate and federal funding is creating a sector of embedded intellectuals. Using the theoretical lens of what is loosely called “autonomism,” I argue that the concept of General Intellect forces us to reconsider traditional notions of intellectual work. The significance of communication, as both a growing academic field and infrastructure for this General Intellect, puts the discipline in the spotlight. After summarizing Gramscian and Foucauldian conceptions of the engaged intellectual, I sketch out a figure of the intellectual adequate to these conditions, what I call the machinic intellectual. |
