Edward Said and the Authority of Literary Criticism

This book examines the earliest writings of Edward Said and the foundations of what came to be known as postcolonial criticism, in order to reveal how the groundbreaking author of Orientalism turned literary criticism into a form of political intervention. Tracing Said's shifting conceptions of 'literature' and 'agency' in relation to the history of (American) literary studies in the thirty years or so between the end of World War II and the last quarter of the twentieth century, this book offers a rich and novel understanding of the critical practice of this indispensable figure and the institutional context from which it emerged. By combining broad-scale literary history with granular attention to the vocabulary of criticism, Nicolas Vandeviver brings to light the harmonizing of methodological conflicts that informs Said's approach to literature; and argues that Said's enduring political significance is grounded in his practice as a literary critic.

Investigates the intellectual strands that informed Said's Orientalism Provides a broad history of mid-twentieth-century literary criticism with special attention to the vocabulary of literary theory Examines the inextricable links between Said's literary criticism and political activism

Autorentext

Nicolas Vandeviver teaches Literary Theory in the Department of Literary Studies, Ghent University, Belgium. He is a former Fulbright Visiting Scholar and Postdoctoral Fellow of the Belgian American Educational Foundation at the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society, Columbia University, USA.

Inhalt

1. Introduction.- 2. Cold reading.- 3. Beyond Formalism.- 4. Beginning Anew.- 5. Disorienting Vision.- 6. Conclusion.