When I was in graduate school, we talked a whole lot about Edward Said, especially his Orientalism. Given all I had heard and read about Said back then, if there were to be a Mount Rushmore of literary critics, I figured Said's head would be there.
History isn't always kind to literary criticism, and that's probably a good thing. Here's an interesting link that's been in my bookmarks for a few weeks now: a book review of two new texts that take on Said, especially for his sometimes sloppy and intellectually dishonest scholarship (my words, not the reviewers). Interesting stuff...
For what it's worth, my sentiments lie with the article's first commenter:
"No academic in the field would argue that 'Orientalism' was not polemic or flawed--most argue the opposite. Instead, it's the idea of a discursive, binary East/West opposition that still holds traction, with reason."
As I said above, this seems like a fair reading of Said, and his enduring value to literary criticism. A favorite piece of mine is his analysis of Austen's Mansfield Park, from his Culture and Imperialism, which argued for a political and imperialist interpretation of the book. Apparently this is a problematic thesis and people have jumped all over it since it first appeared, but I still enjoyed reading it and seeing how Said encourages us to read what is in the margins--or beyond the margins--of a text--and how we should look at what systems/beliefs/ideologies hold a text up and make it work.
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