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Review
Praise for the author:
'One of the leading thinkers of the age.' - The New York Observer
'Edward Said is the most distinguished and cultural critic now writing in America.' - Cornel West
'Said is a brilliant and unique amalgam of scholar, aesthete, and political activist...[He] challenges and stimulates our thinking in every area.' - Washington Post Book World
'Edward Said helps us to understand who we are and what we must do if we aspire to be moral agents, not servants of power.' - Noam Chomsky
'Future work about or influenced by Said will no doubt be more grandiose and heavyweight than this collection of lectures and essays from the last years of his life. But no other work can be as inspiring as this.' - New Humanist
'One of the leading thinkers of the age.' - The New York Observer
'Edward Said is the most distinguished and cultural critic now writing in America.' - Cornel West
'Said is a brilliant and unique amalgam of scholar, aesthete, and political activist...[He] challenges and stimulates our thinking in every area.' - Washington Post Book World
'Edward Said helps us to understand who we are and what we must do if we aspire to be moral agents, not servants of power.' - Noam Chomsky
'Future work about or influenced by Said will no doubt be more grandiose and heavyweight than this collection of lectures and essays from the last years of his life. But no other work can be as inspiring as this.' - New Humanist
Product Description
In the radically changed political atmostphere that has overtaken the United State - and to varying degrees the rest of the world - since September 11, 2001, the notion that cultures can harmoniously and fruitfully coexist seems like little more than a quaint fiction. In this time of heightened animosity and aggression, have humanistic values and democratic principles become irrelevant?
Ever since the ascendancy of critical theory and multicultural studies in the 1960s and 1970s, traditional humanistic education has been under assault. Often seen as the intolerant voice of the masculine establishment and regularly associated with Eurocentrism and even imperialism, the once-sacred literary canon is now as likely to be ridiculed as revered. Edward Said argues that a more democratic form of humanism - one that aims to incorporate, emancipate, and enlighten - is still possible.
Proposing an enhanced dialogue between cutlural traditions as a strategy for revitalizing the humanities, Said contends that words are vital agents of historical and political change and that reading teaches people to continually question, upset, and reform. By considering the emerging social responsibilities of writers and intellectuals in an ever more interconnected world and pointing out that the canonized thinkers of today were yesterday's revolutionaries, Said makes a persuasive case for humanistic education and a more democratic form of criticism.
Ever since the ascendancy of critical theory and multicultural studies in the 1960s and 1970s, traditional humanistic education has been under assault. Often seen as the intolerant voice of the masculine establishment and regularly associated with Eurocentrism and even imperialism, the once-sacred literary canon is now as likely to be ridiculed as revered. Edward Said argues that a more democratic form of humanism - one that aims to incorporate, emancipate, and enlighten - is still possible.
Proposing an enhanced dialogue between cutlural traditions as a strategy for revitalizing the humanities, Said contends that words are vital agents of historical and political change and that reading teaches people to continually question, upset, and reform. By considering the emerging social responsibilities of writers and intellectuals in an ever more interconnected world and pointing out that the canonized thinkers of today were yesterday's revolutionaries, Said makes a persuasive case for humanistic education and a more democratic form of criticism.
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First Sentence
I SHOULD LIKE TO BEGIN THIS SET OF REFLECTIONS BY saying immediately that for all sorts of fairly compelling reasons, I shall be focusing on American humanism, although I do think that a good deal of my argument applies elsewhere too. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
I SHOULD LIKE TO BEGIN THIS SET OF REFLECTIONS BY saying immediately that for all sorts of fairly compelling reasons, I shall be focusing on American humanism, although I do think that a good deal of my argument applies elsewhere too. Read the first page
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Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
In this book, the thesis of Said, one of the greatest literary critics, is in some sense simple. Humanism in his definition, drawing on Vico, is the idea that human and human history can be understood because it is built by human. But if something is built by somebody, does that mean that the former can always be understood by the latter? Do we for example understand numbers...a simple human creation but eternally enigmatic. Such contradiction is however nothing new to Said, "the follower of Adorno": in fact a careful reading suggests Said's argument in this book is deliberately naive so that it is directed to the key point he wishes to communicate: that we should be encouraged to think so, even if it is impossible, and the only way forward is via a concrete reading, a secular reading of the text and the world. So this is a book about the impossible which is also the necessity, as all our lives can only be (and at that point it intersects with another beautiful book he left from his last days, On Late Style). His reading of Auerbach is particularly moving, catching its main motives so incisively and elegantly, placing the status of secularity in Auerbach's masterpiece by his own secular reading (and how Edward Said made this term so enriching!). Even only for this reading, and surrounding chapters to position it in a broader context of humanism, this work is worth reading. A beautiful little book, smooth to read but rich in detail, letting you feel this great author's intellectual breadth.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The book was sent to me the day after I ordered and was delivered in perfect condition. I'm very satisfied.
The book is fun to read, the language is simple,no jargon and it's written in an entertaining way. The book was very inspiring to me, it gives you more concrete ideas on what to do as a humanities scholar and how to make sure your work is purposeful and rewarding.
The book is fun to read, the language is simple,no jargon and it's written in an entertaining way. The book was very inspiring to me, it gives you more concrete ideas on what to do as a humanities scholar and how to make sure your work is purposeful and rewarding.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4 reviews
21 of 21 people found the following review helpful
An elegant last work
27 Jun 2004
Format:Hardcover
These series of lectures represent Said at his most eloquent and heartfelt. Brief and therefore not as rigorously argued as his longer works, he makes his case for what studies of the humanities can be, in fact need to be in the 21st century. While making only cursory swipes at his usual opponents (Bernard Lewis, Harold Bloom)his book is more celebratory and admiring of the writers he has emulated and been influenced by: Eric Auerbach most prominently. An elegiac summa from a writer who will be missed.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Beautiful and nuanced
3 July 2005
Format:Hardcover
Despite its size, this brief collection of lectures comprises a nuanced and compelling argument of how to rescue the humanities from their growing marginalization and irrelevance. Calling for a return to philology and criticizing the jargon-laden obscuratinism and relativism of much of contemporary humanistic practice, Said nevertheless maintains the benefit of close readings of texts and a multiculturalism that consists of expanding the canon rather than tossing it out all together -- in contrast to the willful ignorance of other cultures advocated by the likes of Harold Bloom and Bernard Lewis.
Said also updates and expands on his views of the intellectual in public life which he touched upon in the series of lectures "Representations of the Intellectual." I found these parts quite interesting. However, if you don't hold the same views as the Old Left, you will need to substitute your own discontents for some of his particulars.
Said also updates and expands on his views of the intellectual in public life which he touched upon in the series of lectures "Representations of the Intellectual." I found these parts quite interesting. However, if you don't hold the same views as the Old Left, you will need to substitute your own discontents for some of his particulars.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Said's last offering to the World
19 May 2007
Format:Hardcover
Of course this is one of Edward Said's last offerings to the world. Coming out of Columbia University Press where he taught for five decades, it offers a cogent sampling of Said's thoughts towards intellectuals and humanistic practice in America today.
One overarching theme of the book is simply that the humanities in no way represent a set doctrine of must reads, but rather consists of an organic canon perpetually open to new works, influences and analysis. Some of the spokesmen and advocates for a staid brand of humanism receive a healthy dose of criticism from Said; William Bennett and Allan Bloom specifically. A Closing of the American Mind is indeed exactly what happens when Bloom's thoughts are allowed to wash over the reader. Sam Huntington takes his share of well deserved criticism as well, which obviously relates to his orientalist musings about a clash of civilizations.
More than once Said writes specifically of the challenges, privileges and opportunities currently afforded to intellectuals committed to humanism who happen to reside in the United States. The fact that America is alone as the globe's sole superpower has a constant ubiquitous presence for intellectuals and those who espouse humanistic principles. At one point Said admonishes American humanism in general for being too wedded to a Eurocentric outlook. He points out that it is a bias that cannot remain unquestioned. American humanists are frankly too important because they are citizens, writers, artists and intellects living in the world's only remaining superpower.
Said devotes a chapter to an observation of cultural influences. Pointing out how writers, musicians and painters do not necessarily create or work on a tabula rasa because "the world today is heavily inscribed with information and discourse that crowds around one's individual consciousness." Primarily during the Cold War the CIA subsidized countless humanistic and academic conferences and journals. Humanism and Democratic Criticism goes on to explain that the CIA, while not totally dominating cultural life, has nonetheless had a strong influence.
Towards the end of the book a lengthy chapter deals with a thorough analysis and critique of Erich Auerbach's influential work Mimesis. Of which Said claims is the finest literary humanistic work of the last half of the 1900s. Passages are gone over with an emphasis on sociopolitical context taking into account a host of various factors. The analysis of Goethe and his influences on German fascism is astounding.
Humanism and Democratic Criticism should probably be read on a few different levels: 1.) For a sampling of the late Edward Said's ruminations on a topic he more than anyone else had the authority and expertise to dissect and expound on at length. 2.) As a general academic treatment of an area of inquiry arguably more important now than at any time in the recent past. 3.) Simply as the last book from one of the world's top intellectuals in history.
He is missed.
One overarching theme of the book is simply that the humanities in no way represent a set doctrine of must reads, but rather consists of an organic canon perpetually open to new works, influences and analysis. Some of the spokesmen and advocates for a staid brand of humanism receive a healthy dose of criticism from Said; William Bennett and Allan Bloom specifically. A Closing of the American Mind is indeed exactly what happens when Bloom's thoughts are allowed to wash over the reader. Sam Huntington takes his share of well deserved criticism as well, which obviously relates to his orientalist musings about a clash of civilizations.
More than once Said writes specifically of the challenges, privileges and opportunities currently afforded to intellectuals committed to humanism who happen to reside in the United States. The fact that America is alone as the globe's sole superpower has a constant ubiquitous presence for intellectuals and those who espouse humanistic principles. At one point Said admonishes American humanism in general for being too wedded to a Eurocentric outlook. He points out that it is a bias that cannot remain unquestioned. American humanists are frankly too important because they are citizens, writers, artists and intellects living in the world's only remaining superpower.
Said devotes a chapter to an observation of cultural influences. Pointing out how writers, musicians and painters do not necessarily create or work on a tabula rasa because "the world today is heavily inscribed with information and discourse that crowds around one's individual consciousness." Primarily during the Cold War the CIA subsidized countless humanistic and academic conferences and journals. Humanism and Democratic Criticism goes on to explain that the CIA, while not totally dominating cultural life, has nonetheless had a strong influence.
Towards the end of the book a lengthy chapter deals with a thorough analysis and critique of Erich Auerbach's influential work Mimesis. Of which Said claims is the finest literary humanistic work of the last half of the 1900s. Passages are gone over with an emphasis on sociopolitical context taking into account a host of various factors. The analysis of Goethe and his influences on German fascism is astounding.
Humanism and Democratic Criticism should probably be read on a few different levels: 1.) For a sampling of the late Edward Said's ruminations on a topic he more than anyone else had the authority and expertise to dissect and expound on at length. 2.) As a general academic treatment of an area of inquiry arguably more important now than at any time in the recent past. 3.) Simply as the last book from one of the world's top intellectuals in history.
He is missed.
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