Edward W. Said (1935–2003) ranks as one of the most preeminent public intellectuals of our time. Through his literary criticism, his advocacy for the Palestinian cause, and his groundbreaking book Orientalism, Said elegantly enriched public discourse by unsettling the status quo. This indispensable volume, the most comprehensive and wide-ranging resource on Edward Said’s life and work, spans his broad legacy both within and beyond the academy. The book brings together contributions from thirty-one luminaries—leading scholars, critics, writers, and activists—to engage Said’s provocative ideas. Their essays and interviews explore the key themes of emancipation and representation through the prisms of postcolonial theory, literature, music, philosophy, and cultural studies.
Contributors: Bill Ashcroft, Ben Conisbee Baer, Daniel Barenboim, Timothy Brennan, Noam Chomsky, Denise DeCaires-Narain, Nicholas Dirks, Marc H. Ellis, Rokus de Groot, Sabry Hafez, Abdirahman A. Hussein, Ardi Imseis, Adel Iskandar, Ghada Karmi, Katherine Callen King, Joseph Massad, W. J. T. Mitchell, Laura Nader, Ilan Pappe, Benita Parry, Rajagopalan Radhakrishnan, Jahan Ramazani, Jacqueline Rose, Lecia Rosenthal, Hakem Rustom, Avi Shlaim, Ella Habiba Shohat, Robert Spencer, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Anastasia Valassopoulos, Asha Varadharajan, Michael Wood
Edward Said A Legacy of Emancipation and Representation
About the Book
Reviews
“Iskandar, Rustom, and their contributors have produced a rich, ambitious, and complex collection that will surely become one of the authoritative texts for those interested in Said’s legacy.”—Arab Studies Journal
“Edward Said: A Legacy of Emancipation and Representation moves well beyond the tonalities of tribute and commemoration while managing to hold them in place. The anthology marks a sustained engagement with the writings of one of the most important humanists and public intellectuals of the second half of the twentieth century, honoring his memory through recapitulating something of Said’s own restlessness, critical energy, and deeply self-reflexive political engagements.”—Neville Hoad, University of Texas in Austin Jrnl Of Palestine Studies"Edward Said was an intellectual with a passion for justice and he allowed nothing to deter him in its pursuit. Edward Said: A Legacy of Emancipation and Representation reflects this."—Archbishop Desmond Tutu
"Edward Said was the great public intellectual in late 20th century United States of America. Yet the many dimensions of his genius have yet to be fully appreciated. This indispensable book is a grand response to this urgent need!"—Cornel West, Princeton University
"Edward Said: Emancipation and Representation explores themes of aesthetics, identity, colonialism, Palestine, Israel, Zionism and intellectuals. Each section includes path-breaking new work in the growing field of Edward Said Studies. No other existing book deals with Said's work from so many varied perspectives."—Hamid Dabashi, Columbia University
"This remarkable volume helps to ensure that our conversation with Edward Said continues; all the articles in it draw their material or their inspiration from his work, and their diversity and richness are a testament to his extraordinary legacy."—Ahdaf Soueif, author of The Map of Love: A Novel, Booker Prize finalist
"The very distinguished and diverse group of scholars who have contributed to this volume explore and illuminate the intellectual and political dimensions, and profound impact, of Edward W. Said's life and work. Their original and lively essays enrich our understanding of Said's writings, and the book as a whole is both testimony and tribute to the continuing importance, vitality and productivity of Said's legacy as a scholar, public intellectual, cultural critic and political activist."—Zachary Lockman, author of Contending Visions of the Middle East: the History and Politics of Orientalism
"In this remarkable and important book, the authors interact with Edward Said in so many different ways that the reader is both amazed and out of breath. This book makes one think."—Immanuel Wallerstein, Yale University
"This timely volume takes seriously the vast and challenging writings of Edward Said as they traverse the praxis of humanism, the literary contours of orientalism, and the intransigent and persistent critical of colonial power and the Palestinian struggle for freedom. A wide range of authors contest the the proper stance and trajectory of Said’s work, the ramifications of his work for literary studies, aesthetics, and politics, the status of humanism and secular criticism. They converge, however, in appreciating the passionate critique of colonial occupation and dispossession from the perspective of the displaced and the refugee. Taken together, these essays show how academic reflection can and must enter the public world at precisely those junctures that the border patrols of thought would shut down. They show that the critical responsibility of intellectuals consists in marshalling media for articulating loss and hope, insisting on a presence for those whose lives are threatened time and again with erasure. This is an important and rich volume that continues the critical task of Said in a plurivocal mode, establishing the unceasing intellectual force and fecundity of Said's work."—Judith Butler, University of California, Berkeley
Table of Contents
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Emancipation and Representation
Adel Iskandar and Hakem Rustom
1. Affiliating with Edward Said
Joseph Massad
Part 1. On Colony and Aesthetics
2. Edward Said Remembered on September 11, 2004: A Conversation with Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
Ben Conisbee Baer
3. Beginnings Again
Michael Wood
4. Side by Side: The Other Is Not Mute
Laura Nader
5. Edward Said and Anthropology
Nicholas B. Dirks
6. The Critic and the Public: Edward Said and World Literature
Timothy Brennan
7. Affiliating Edward Said Closer to Home: Reading Postcolonial
Women's Texts
Denise deCaires Narain
8. Translating Heroism: Locating Edward Said on Ahdaf Soueif's The Map of Love
Katherine Callen King
9. Edward Said and the Poetry of Decolonization
Jahan Ramazani
10. Edward Said in Contemporary Arabic Culture
Sabry Hafez
11. "Long, Languorous, Repetitious Line":
Edward Said's Critique of Arab Popular Culture
Anastasia Valassopoulos
12. Edward Said and Counterpoint
Rokus de Groot
Part 2. Palestine, Israel, and Zionism
13. The Arab/Jewish Counterpoint: An Interview with Daniel Barenboim
Hakem Rustom
14. Speaking Truth to Power: On Edward Said and the Palestinian Freedom Struggle
Ardi Imseis
15. Edward Said and the Palestine Question
Avi Shlaim
16. Representation and Liberation: From Orientalism to the Palestinian Crisis
Bill Ashcroft
17. Said and the Palestinian Diaspora: A Personal Reflection
Ghada Karmi
18. The Question of Zionism: Continuing the Dialogue
Jacqueline Rose
19. Edward Said's Impact on Post-Zionist Critique in Israel
Ilan Pappe
20. The "Postcolonial" in Translation: Reading Said in Hebrew
Ella Shohat
21. Exile With/Out God: A Jewish Commentary in Memory of Edward Said
Marc H. Ellis
Part 3. The Intellectual at a Crossroads
22. The Incalculable Loss: Conversations with Noam Chomsky
Adel Iskandar
23. "Contented Homeland Peace": The Motif of Exile in Edward Said
Robert Spencer
24. A New "Copernican" Revolution: Said's Critique of Metaphysics and Theology
Abdirahman A. Hussein
25. Edward Said and the Possibilities of Humanism
R. Radhakrishnan
26. The Language of the Unrequited: Memory, Aspiration, and Antagonism in the Utopian Imagination of Edward Said
Asha Varadharajan
27. Between Humanism and Late Style
Lecia Rosenthal
28. Secular Divination: Edward Said's Humanism
W.J.T. Mitchell
29. Countercurrents and Tensions in Said's Critical Practice
Benita Parry
List of Contributors
Index