Edward Said: The Charisma of Criticism

By H. ARAM VEESER at Barnes and Noble Review…

It can be difficult to put all the pieces of Edward Said together, even now, seven years after his death. He was large, he contained multitudes: both Palestinian and American; both a professor of comparative literature at Columbia University and a music critic for The Nation; both a president of the Modern Language Association and a prominent spokesman for the Palestinian National Council. Said was among the first literary scholars in the United States to champion the new ideas coming out of European debates about language and literature, and his 1978 book Orientalism made him one of the founders of postcolonial studies. But he was also scathing about how academic cultural theory tended to turn into its own playground—a substitute for engagement with the world. He was an ardent critic of U.S. policy in the Middle East, but also of the Palestinian Liberation Organization when it disappointed him. He enjoyed a certain reputation as a polemicist; and enjoy it he certainly did. I suppose that is how he is most often remembered now. More…