Article المقال ( Avril )

d Edward Said: Places of Mind c

A Critical Biography of Edward Said

Written by: Prof. Essam Fattouh 

Professor of English Literature 

Department of English

Faculty of Arts – University of Alexandria

 

 

Since his untimely death in 2003, his varied and original critical interventions as a reader of the masterpieces of Western literature, his deconstruction of orientalism, as well as a key spokesman for the Palestinian people, have attracted dozens of works entirely dedicated to explicating, debating and – sometimes – contesting a lifetime of important and active contributions to these fields.

Timothy Brennan’s brilliant study of Said’s life and achievement surpasses by far most earlier works on this seminal thinker. Brennan’s biography painstakingly explores Said’s Palestinian origins, his childhood in Egypt, and the various influences that affected him in the USA, from high school till the completion of his PhD from Princeton University.

Brennan’s detailed study meticulously examines an entire archive of Said’s documents, including his unpublished notes, his incomplete projects, his lecture notes, his correspondence, and even his hitherto unknown attempts at writing fiction and poetry.

Not only was Brennan one of Said’s favorite graduate students, but Said was also the supervisor of his PhD dissertation at Columbia University; but far more importantly, Brennan continued to be a good friend in close contact with his mentor up to the very end.

In many ways, I consider myself to have been fortunate during my twelve years of residence in the USA, to have studied with and known many outstanding teachers and literary critics at three universities (Purdue, Johns Hopkins and Stony Brooke). Edward Said, however, stands head and shoulders above all of those. For me, as well as for thousands of Arab intellectuals, he stood up as a national hero, a distinguished member of Columbia University’s staff (where he taught for about three decades), as well as a personable, generous, and charismatic figure.

My encounter with Said, though brief, was indeed quite profound. Said had arrived as a guest speaker at Stony Brooke for two public lectures. Needless to say, attendance for both lectures reached full capacity. Though primarily intended for the English Department and the Music Institute at the University, respectively, the event attracted Arab students of all majors and alarmed Jewish/Zionist groups, who failed to cancel the lectures, and sought to disrupt both meetings by challenging Said historically and politically. Said’s English Literature lecture concentrated on offering a new reading of the founders of the classical tradition of English lit., with a special emphasis on Jonathan Swift. The second one was a specialized lecture on opera, taking its cue from the work of the Frankfurt School’s major thinker Theodor Adorno.

Said was not in the least perturbed by the presence of Zionists among his audience. Their appearance did not in the least surprise the lecturer, who confidently and calmly challenged their factual data and exposed the false premises of their questions with a barrage of quotations from American and sometimes even Zionist sources, to the amusement of his audience and even gained the respect of some of his more intelligent detractors.

Said’s lectures and his erudition acquired a special status among the Ivy-league universities and institutes of higher learning throughout the USA. Various TV programs – from PBS and the three major networks (ABC, CBS and NBC) welcomed him to programs, such as the McNeil/Lehrer Newshour and Ted Kopple’s Nightline in the States, to the BBC in England – bombarded him with invitations to appear on their screens regularly. Israeli intellectuals, and supporters of Zionism, learned gradually to avoid public confrontations and debates they were most likely to lose.

Brennan’s biography concentrates on four specific domains in which Said’s lifetime contributions which helped radicalize and redefine those specific interdisciplinary fields.

First, Said’s contribution to literary criticism. Twentieth-century Anglo-American criticism underwent a major paradigmatic shift through the introduction of French literary theory, one of whose earliest advocates was Said himself. Said’s work introduced and domesticated the works of French writers such as Foucault, Derrida, Lacan, Althusser and Barthes to English texts, opening new vistas for criticism that have come to dominate the field as we know it today.

Second, Said’s innovative study entitled Orientalism (1978), through his application of Michel Foucault’s archeological methodology, demonstrated the relationship between power and knowledge that gave rise to the discipline of orientalism in its attempt to impose Western political and economic hegemony over the East within a colonial imperialist framework.

Third, Said’s work pioneered – if not founded – an interest in post-colonial studies. Thanks to his work, a narrowly restricted cannon was forced to include works by such writers as Mahfouz, Rushdie, Tayib Salih, Achebe, and many others.

Fourth, in most of his practical applications, Said invariably placed any literary text within its historical and political context. In this sense, Said may be said to expand and build upon the work of such major Marxist critics as Lucas or Raymond Williams, while deploying a more comprehensive understanding of ideology developed by the French Marxist Althusser.

Finally, let us remember that Edward Said has single-handedly succeeded in narrating the tragedy of Palestine, a task in which Arab ministries and institutions had failed for over two decades.

Brennan’s biography clearly demonstrates the life and achievements of a single man whose commitment to a cause and his belief in reason make of his work the best expression of a human conscience in its ceaseless quest for truth, virtue and beauty.

بيروت، 27 أبريل 2021