| |||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £6.80
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Reading Orientalism: Said and the Unsaid (Publications on the Near East) for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £6.80, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
"There is a lot of commentary available on Edward Said and Orientalism, but nothing like this. Varisco has compiled a comprehensive, critical overview of nearly everything that has been said on the topic. The notes and bibliography alone are a significant contribution to scholarship on Said and his work, but Varisco also uses his vast wealth of sources as the basis for a devastating critique of Said's methodology and conclusions - a critique that fairly acknowledges the beneficial consequences of Orientalism and the issues it raises." Walter G. Andrews, University of Washington "Varisco's book is long and closely argued, and it is impossible adequately to summarize its many points of contention in a review. Its discursive endnotes practically amount to a second book... [Reading Orientalism] makes for exhilarating reading ... "--TLS, May 9, 2008
Product Description
The late Edward Said remains one of the most influential critics and public intellectuals of our time, with lasting contributions to many disciplines. Much of his reputation derives from the phenomenal multidisciplinary influence of his 1978 book "Orientalism". Said's seminal polemic analyzes novels, travelogues, and academic texts to argue that a dominant discourse of West over East has warped virtually all past European and American representation of the Near East. But despite the book's wide acclaim, no systematic critical survey of the rhetoric in Said's representation of Orientalism and the resulting impact on intellectual culture has appeared until today.Drawing on the extensive discussion of Said's work in more than 600 bibliographic entries, Daniel Martin Varisco has written an ambitious intellectual history of the debates that Said's work has sparked in several disciplines, highlighting in particular its reception among Arab and European scholars. While pointing out Said's tendency to essentialize and privilege certain texts at the expense of those that do not comfortably fit his theoretical framework, Varisco analyzes the extensive commentary the book has engendered in Oriental studies, literary and cultural studies, feminist scholarship, history, political science, and anthropology.He employs "critical satire" to parody the exaggerated and pedantic aspects of post-colonial discourse, including Said's profound under appreciation of the role of irony and reform in many of the texts he cites. The end result is a companion volume to Orientalism and the vast research it inspired. Rather than contribute to duelling essentialisms, Varisco provides a path to move beyond the binary of East versus West and the polemics of blame. Reading Orientalism is the most comprehensive survey of Said's writing and thinking to date. It will be of strong interest to scholars of Middle East studies, anthropology, history, cultural studies, post-colonial studies, and literary studies.
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
There are no customer reviews yet on Amazon.co.uk.
5 star
4 star
3 star
2 star
1 star
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2 reviews
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Recommended to all readers of Said's Orientalism
16 Mar 2010
Format:Paperback
This is probably the best book to read after reading Edward Said's Orientalism. Perhaps they should be sold as a set. Orientalism generated an enormous body of critical literature; Varnisco has read more than 600 pieces and presents them here in a carefully documented, highly readable survey. He seems to have striven to be even-handed and fair; for example he both praises and criticizes Bernard Lewis. Since he has a detailed bibliography and notes, it serves equally well as a one-volume overview and as an entrée to all the literature.
Varnisco's notes pose the one difficulty in the book: they are very definitely worth reading as one goes, but with so many, it is hard to choose: continue reading the text or flip back and forth?
Varnisco's writing is marvelous. The introductory material is a little stiff and heavy on the academese, but after that it flows. He pulls together many direct quotations from his enormous variety of sources with grace and produces a highly readable text. In addition, he is very witty, and makes loving use of his language. He often includes well-chosen puns that enrich his text by producing alternative readings, both of which are correct. Examples include the subtitle, The Said and the Unsaid and on page 272: "The volume in question in which the offending article by Lewis appears is poor evidence for Said's dis[cuss]ing of Orientalism-as-usual", or the chapter heading "Defin[ess]ing Orientalism". It is a pleasure to read an author who plays so skillfully with language.
Varnisco's notes pose the one difficulty in the book: they are very definitely worth reading as one goes, but with so many, it is hard to choose: continue reading the text or flip back and forth?
Varnisco's writing is marvelous. The introductory material is a little stiff and heavy on the academese, but after that it flows. He pulls together many direct quotations from his enormous variety of sources with grace and produces a highly readable text. In addition, he is very witty, and makes loving use of his language. He often includes well-chosen puns that enrich his text by producing alternative readings, both of which are correct. Examples include the subtitle, The Said and the Unsaid and on page 272: "The volume in question in which the offending article by Lewis appears is poor evidence for Said's dis[cuss]ing of Orientalism-as-usual", or the chapter heading "Defin[ess]ing Orientalism". It is a pleasure to read an author who plays so skillfully with language.
2 of 13 people found the following review helpful
The other half of Edward Said's Orientalism--and of three decades of polemics
10 Aug 2009
Format:Paperback
"Reading Orientalism" is on the ROROTOKO list of cutting-edge intellectual nonfiction. Professor Varisco's book interview ran here as cover feature on April 4, 2009.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
