This article takes the "public intellectual" trope as a theoretical case study, and traces how it has been used in the elite public sphere of the contemporary United States since its coining in 1987. The analysis challenges the notion that the "public intellectual" is primarily about broad democratic publics. It documents instead how the trope is used to frame meaning and practice within specific intellectual publics, namely science, higher education, and journalism. By focusing on the play of tropes around the "public intellectual" and examining the authoritative cultural members who use the trope, the trope analysis identifies principles and strategies under contest in the journalistic, academic, and political fields of the contemporary United States.