Edward Said, or Scholar vs Empire

How can an intellectual fight forces far larger than a single individual? How can solidarity be an antidote to racism? Why is there no distinction between the local and the global? What is the scholar's role in an alienating political climate? Why are criticism and humanism necessary partners? The author of Orientalism and world-changing frameworks such as Travelling Theory, Permission To Narrate, and Contrapuntal Reading, as well as remarkable texts, such as On Late Style and Representations of the Intellectual, teaches us how criticism can blunt instruments of empire. In this course, students observe the journey of one scholar as he writes between worlds against imperialist supremacy and colonial logic. They'll move from Exile to Indigeneity, Silence to Music, Centers to Margins, Victimhood to Dignity, West to East, Peace to Terror, Theory to Practice, Politics to Knowledge, Religiosity to Secularism, Statehood to Fragmentation, and back.