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Edward Said's legacy

Friday, 23rd May 2008

Thirty years after publication of his most celebrated work, the TLS runs a devastating critique:

So many academics want the arguments presented in Edward Said’s "Orientalism" to be true. It encourages the reading of novels at an oblique angle in order to discover hidden colonialist subtexts. It promotes a hypercritical version of British and, more generally, of Western achievements. It discourages any kind of critical approach to Islam in Middle Eastern studies. Above all, "Orientalism" licenses those academics who are so minded to think of their research and teaching as political activities. The drudgery of teaching is thus transformed into something much more exciting, namely “speaking truth to power”.
It's worth adding that the author of one of the books under discussion admires Said's outspoken stance on Palestinian rights, but still doesn't  think his scholarly work should be given a pass, as it so often is. [Via The Arabist]

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