Critical Humanism in the Life and Works of Edward Said: Philology, Power, and Palestine

Catalog description

This course will explore a range of genres and styles from the corpus of, Edward Said (1935-2003) - the Palestinian American literary scholar and critic whose work continues to inform and influence numerous fields in the humanities and social sciences, and which maintains popularity among general audiences outside the university, as well. Across works of critical theory, literary analysis, memoir, occasional writing, political commentary, and other traditions, Said's critical oeuvre both exposes the ways in which humanistic inquiry has historically served systems of domination--like colonialism and slavery - while it offers theoretical and practical strategies for advancing a critical recuperation of humanism. We will explore Said's injunction for a 'return to philology' as the field of activity whose tools and methods illuminate the historical affiliations of knowledge with power. We will begin by studying Said's early elaborations of 'intention and method' in Beginnings (1975), where he develops tools for tracing the processes by which texts acquire meaning and form. From there, we will follow the evolution and augmentation of key concepts in his critical lexicon - such as "contrapuntal reading," "worldliness," "secular interpretation," "imaginative geography," "traveling theory" and "lateness." How might such modes of close reading transcend the realm of textual exegesis, and help us to uncover language's constitutive role in shaping configurations of political ontology, and the secular formations of social and cultural authority? In addition to major works of theory and criticism like Orientalism (1978), The World, the Text, and the Critic (1983), and Culture and Imperialism (1993), we will consider the throughlines of Said's ideas and methods as they extend across and between literary, musical, cultural, historical, and political concerns, including the question…