Edward Said: A Critical Reader - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 155786229X ISBN 13: 9781557862297

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, 2009

Synopsis

Edward Said's intellectual journeys have taken him around the globe and across many disciplinary borders. Author of "Orientalism and The Word", 'The Text", and "The Critic", Said has been widely influential in shaping contemporary debates in the humanities and social sciences, from literature and history to anthropology and area studies. Most famously, perhaps, he has also been for two decades the most visible spokesperson for the Palestinian cause in the United States (and, increasingly, in Britain), a familiar figure on American television and a member of the Palestinian parliament-in-exile from 1977 to 1991. This volume is the first book-length examination of Said's remarkable career, providing a critical survey of his writings and an interim assessment of his achievements in both the cultural and political spheres. This collection includes essays on the Arab-Islamic context of Said's work, his reception among Israeli and American Jews, the institutional contexts of his cultural criticism, and his interventions in Middle Eastern politics. The book concludes with a lengthy interview in which Edward Said comments on his youth in Cairo, on the current state of political and cultural criticism in the United States, and on the increasing integration of his own political and cultural writings in recent years.

About this title

Review

"Will introduce students to the multifarious cultural problems that can be subsumed under the rubric of Edward Said." Voice Literature Supplement

"An excellent collection of critical essays on the writings of Edward Said. Highly recommended as an assessment of one of the most influential and readable critics of today's international cultural scene." Language and Literature

"The reader is a vibrant collection of scholarly essays which elaborate different nuances which issue from Said's written work, his academic position, his politics, his cultural positionality, and the ways in which he negotiates these."

"It is a wonderful collection of dense and rigorous analysis, which covers cultural studies, anthropolgy, politics, literature and history."

"Reading through all these critical analyses of Said's work is refreshingly challenging, and it is rewarded at the end with the "Interview with Edward Said" with Jenifer Wicke and Michael Sprinker."

"The interview sweeps eloquently through major considerations, like nationalism, canonical works, narrativization, and marxism." Visions

About the Author

Michael Sprinker is also Assistant to Associate Professor of English at Oregon State University.

About this edition

• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 155786229X
• ISBN 13: 9781557862297
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 284
• Editor: Sprinker Michael