Edward Said: Criticism and SocietyFew public intellectuals have had such a big impact outside the academy as Edward Said.This, the first full-length intellectual biography of the groundbreaking author of Orientalism, reveals some startling observations. Abdirahman Hussein argues that underneath Said’s carefully constructed eclecticism there is a global method in his work. Taking Beginnings as the key text Hussein asserts that the discontinuity of the Palestinian experience informs Said’s entire oeuvre but simultaneously transcends it in a permanent search for a new synthesis. Hussein argues that this informs Said’s approach not only to Conrad, Swift, and Eliot, but also to Lukács, Williams, Gramsci and Adorno. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Dialectical Subversion and Archaeogenealogy | 4 |
Dismantling Ideological Walls | 8 |
Debating with Knowledge Wrestling with History | 10 |
Intellectuals Collusion and Opposition | 12 |
Is an Affiliated Human Community Possible? | 17 |
Reflexivity and Selfcreation in Said and Conrad | 19 |
The Artistic Self in Conditions of Extremity | 27 |
Foucault on Truth Knowledge History | 131 |
Humanity as Autodidact | 138 |
The Struggle for the World Culture Hegemony and Intellectuals | 147 |
Should Worldliness Be an Issue? | 160 |
The Genealogy of Modernity | 165 |
Hegemony or Community? | 172 |
Texts as Bearers of Authority | 182 |
Refining Critics Radical Theory and the Liberal Consensus | 193 |
The EitherOr Imperative | 32 |
Normativity as Negativity | 37 |
Conrad and the Imperialism of Ideas | 43 |
SpaceTime as Sedimented Gestalts | 48 |
Beginnings and Authority Ideology Critique and Community I | 53 |
The Paradox of Modernity | 70 |
Beginnings in the Absence of Origins | 72 |
The Case Against Idealism and Empiricism | 81 |
Towards an Experimental Rationality | 90 |
Ideological Currency Versus Critical Knowledge | 92 |
The Dynamics of Textuality | 97 |
Beginnings and Authority Ideology Critique and Community II | 105 |
Textual Production and the Dilemmas of Modernity | 111 |
Much Ado About Nothing | 122 |
The Space Between Philosophy Language and History | 128 |
Critical Consciousness Methodology and History | 210 |
Culture and Barbarism Eurocentric Thought and Imperialism | 224 |
Orientalist Discourse as Hegemonic Intention | 236 |
Identity Imperialism and the Canon | 248 |
Structure of Attitudes and References | 253 |
Activating the Historical Stage | 259 |
An Atonal Conception of Community | 261 |
Imperialism in the American Century | 265 |
Zionism Orientalism and EuroAmerican Imperialism | 269 |
Divine Selflegitimation | 289 |
Normativity Critique and Philosophical Method | 296 |
Notes | 310 |
331 | |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
activity Adorno affiliation agonistic dialectic American analysis analytic philosophy Arab argues argument authority Beginnings Bové broad Bruce Robbins called career century chapter conception Conrad constitutes contemporary context critical consciousness critique Culture and Imperialism despite discourse discussion dogma empiricism enactment epistemological Eurocentric European imperialism example existential Foucauldian Foucault hegemonic hence human Ibid idea ideals ideology implications important insights insistence intellectual intention intentionality interpretive Islam Israel Joseph Conrad knowledge language large number linguicity literary literature Marxism means metacritical methodological mind modern modernist multiple narrative normativity notion novel Orientalism Orientalist original Palestine Palestinian particular passage philosophical political poststructuralist precisely radical rationality reality relationship Said's criticism Said's view Said's writing Secular Criticism sense social society socio-cultural socio-political specific strategic structuralist structure textual theoretical thinkers thought tion tradition transformation Traveling Theory truth ultimately various Vico Vico's Western words worldliness Zahirites Zionism