Edward said's affiliations

Author: San Juan Jr, E.

Source: Atlantic Studies: Literary, Cultural and Historical perspectives on Europe, Afr, Volume 3, Number 1, April 2006 , pp. 43-61(19)

Publisher: Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group

Buy & download fulltext article:

Price: $50.43 plus tax (Refund Policy)

Abstract:

Postcolonial theory and criticism seizes on the fact of the uneven development of world capitalism as the central cultural theme for its reflections, divorcing it from the totality of social relations in history and the international process of class struggle. Edward Said inspired this “culturalist approach” with his deconstructive reading of Antonio Gramsci's critique of bourgeois hegemony. Said, however, tried to complicate the thesis of Orientalism with a critique of imperialist history, including US global interventions, in Culture and Imperialism and his later writings. Overall, Said, despite a resort to a militant species of liberal humanism, provides a critical perspective on the complicity of academic discourse with predatory neocolonial attacks on people of color everywhere, and on the value of popular-democratic ideals of democratic sovereignty and egalitarian community that can reconcile Europe and the Atlantic world with the revolutionary movements of “postcolonial” subalterns around the globalized planet. As a democratic, secular humanist, Said is an ally of the popular masses against the terror of corporate globalization.

Keywords: postcolonialism; hybridity; Edward Said; secular humanism; hegemony; Antonio Gramsci; neocolonialism; C. L. R. James

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14788810500525481

Publication date: 2006-04-01