Edward Said: A Critical Reader / Edition 1

by Michael Sprinker

Overview

This volume is the first book-length examination of Said's remarkable career, providing a critical survey of his writings and an interim assessment of his achievements in both the cultural and political spheres. This collection includes essays on the Arab-Islamic context of Said's work, his reception among Israeli and American Jews, the institutional contexts of his cultural criticism, and his interventions in Middle Eastern politics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781557862297
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	03/02/1993
Pages:	284
Product dimensions:	7.87(w) x 9.84(h) x 0.59(d)

About the Author

Michael Sprinker is also Assistant to Associate Professor of English at Oregon State University.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Michael Sprinker (State University of New York, Stony Brook).

1. Connections with Palestine: Nubar Hovsepian (American Council for Palestine Affairs, New York).

2. Overlapping Territories and Intertwined Histories: Edward Said's Postcolonial Cosmopolitanism: Benita Parry .

3. The East is a Career: Edward Said and the Logics of Professionalism: Bruce Robbins.

4. Places of Mind, Occupied Lands: Edward Said and Philology: Timothy Brennan (University of Michigan, Purdue University).

5. Worldliness-without-World, Homelessness-as-Home: Towards a Definition of the Specular Border Intellectual: Abdul R. JanMohamed (University of California, Berkeley).

6. Antinomies of Exile: Said at the Frontiers of National Narration: Ella Shohat (City University of New York).

7. East of Said: Richard G. Fox (Duke University, Durham).

8. The Resonance of the Arab-Islamic Heritage in the Work of Edward Said: Ferial J. Ghazoul (American University in Cairo, Egypt).

9. The Palestinian Intellectual and the Liberation of the Academy: Barbara Harlow (University of Texas at Austin).

10. Their Own Words? An Essay for Edward Said: Partha Chatterjee Interview with Edward Said: Jennifer Wicke and Michael Sprinker .

Select Bibliography of Edward Said's Work.

Notes on Contributors.

Index.

Editorial Reviews

"Will introduce students to the multifarious cultural problems that can be subsumed under the rubric of Edward Said." Voice Literature Supplement

"An excellent collection of critical essays on the writings of Edward Said. Highly recommended as an assessment of one of the most influential and readable critics of today's international cultural scene." Language and Literature

"The reader is a vibrant collection of scholarly essays which elaborate different nuances which issue from Said's written work, his academic position, his politics, his cultural positionality, and the ways in which he negotiates these."

"It is a wonderful collection of dense and rigorous analysis, which covers cultural studies, anthropolgy, politics, literature and history."

"Reading through all these critical analyses of Said's work is refreshingly challenging, and it is rewarded at the end with the "Interview with Edward Said" with Jenifer Wicke and Michael Sprinker."

"The interview sweeps eloquently through major considerations, like nationalism, canonical works, narrativization, and marxism." Visions

From the Publisher

Said is a leading intellectual and critic, and his new book, Culture and Imperialism , is a major achievement that should be read widely. It explores and illuminates two major points: that the European effort to rule foreign lands grew out of a broad cultural willingness to bring European ``civilization'' to ``primitive'' peoples who deserved subjugation and that resistance to European rule evolved into the decolonization struggle and assertions of new cultural identity. Said's analysis is compelling because he links his political conclusions to deep cultural and literary analysis. His eminence as a literary critic and professor of literature at Columbia University allows him to present his provocative views through careful readings of the literary canon: Charles Dickens's Great Expectations , Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness , E.M. Forster's Passage to India , and others. He presents the resistance to European rule by analyzing works of Third World intellectuals who articulated the liberation struggle and the assertion of new identities. His final section looks at the American drive for empire, later than Europe's and even more strongly invoking a self-justifying sense of mission. Throughout, Said presents his challenging ideas with great intelligence, extensive cultural knowledge, a clear and gracious writing style, and a flexible and humane spirit. In comparison, the collection of articles analyzing Said's critical and political influence aims at a more specialized audience. The ten essays by academics and journalists vary in appeal. Several illuminate interesting aspects of Said's work, particularly his own emphasis on being in exile between two cultures. Others, however, are so enmeshed in the jargon of current academic discourse that they will fascinate only the most committed readers. The most interesting article is the 1989 interview with Said, which ranges over his experiences in Cairo as a child and more recently as a scholar, his frustrations over media representation of Palestinian issues, and, again, his thoughtful, open approach to political and cultural ideas.-- Elizabeth Hayford, Associated Colls. of the Midwest, Chicago

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