Remembering Benedict Anderson
The renowned scholar exemplified intellectual passion and political engagement.
by Eric Alterman
Young academics are often advised to prioritize scholarship over citizenship, meaning political involvement. But as the careers of some of our most influential scholars repeatedly demonstrate, especially in the humanities and social sciences, this is often a false and foolish distinction. It’s hard to imagine a more impressive “citizen scholar” than Benedict Richard O’Gorman Anderson, the Anglo/Irish, China-born, California- and Ireland-raised, Cambridge- and Cornell-educated specialist in Indonesian, Philippine, and Thai politics and culture. An endowed professor at Cornell and a frequent contributor to New Left Review, Anderson died in his sleep of apparent heart failure on December 13, three days after giving a lecture on “Nationalism and Anarchism” at the University of Indonesia. He was 79.
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