ABSTRACT
Why read Edward Said? No other cultural critic has revealed so powerfully how ‘down to earth’ theory really is, for it comes to being in some place, for a particular reason, and with a particular history. This is nowhere truer than in Edward Said’s own theory. For whether he is talking about English literature, about the complexities of texts and how they are formed, about the ways in which the West exerted power over the Oriental world, about the functions of intellectuals in society, or even about music, his own place as an exiled Palestinian intellectual is constantly inflected in his work. A second reason to read Said is linked to this: for a distinguished academic and American citizen, this identity as a Palestinian is extremely paradoxical and demonstrates just how
paradoxical and constructed all identity is, particularly that of people scattered throughout the world away from their homeland. Said’s paradox of identity is indicative of the complex identities of diasporic and post-colonial peoples throughout the world today. Paradoxes linked to this question of identity run throughout Said’s work, but far from being disabling, such paradox is a key to the intellectual force of his writings, locating them firmly in a world in which ideology has material consequences and in which human life does not conform neatly to abstract theory.
