Edward Said: Criticism and Society

by Abdirahman A. Hussein

Few 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.

Genres: Politics, Philosophy

339 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Kit · Rating 1 out of 5]

not terribly insightful overview of Said's work, written in stolidly clunky academic jargon. Said himself barely ever wrote like this - saw academic jargon as exclusionary. go to the source instead.

[Clio]

I hope someday someone loves me the way Hussein loves Said. I hope I am able to love other authors as nakedly.