Book contents
- Orientalism and Literature
- Cambridge Critical Concepts
- Orientalism and Literature
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part 1 Origins
- Part II Development
- Chapter 8 Said, Bhabha and the Colonized Subject
- Chapter 9 The Harem: Gendering Orientalism
- Chapter 10 Orientalism and Middle East Travel Writing
- Chapter 11 Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century American Orientalism
- Chapter 12 Edward Said and Resistance in Colonial and Postcolonial Literatures
- Chapter 13 Can the Cosmopolitan Writer Be Absolved of Racism?
- Part III Application
- Further Reading
- Index
Chapter 13 - Can the Cosmopolitan Writer Be Absolved of Racism?
from Part II - Development
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 November 2019
- Orientalism and Literature
- Cambridge Critical Concepts
- Orientalism and Literature
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part 1 Origins
- Part II Development
- Chapter 8 Said, Bhabha and the Colonized Subject
- Chapter 9 The Harem: Gendering Orientalism
- Chapter 10 Orientalism and Middle East Travel Writing
- Chapter 11 Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century American Orientalism
- Chapter 12 Edward Said and Resistance in Colonial and Postcolonial Literatures
- Chapter 13 Can the Cosmopolitan Writer Be Absolved of Racism?
- Part III Application
- Further Reading
- Index
Summary
Aijaz Ahmad’s chapter “Orientalism and After,” collected in his 1992 book In Theory, has proved to be one of the most thorough and lasting critiques of a large span of Edward Said’s work, ranging from The Question of Palestine to Culture and Imperialism. Ahmad’s criticism of Said’s work is informed, incisive and biting, but it is his comments on Said’s literary criticism which suggest that the latter absolved Joseph Conrad, E. M. Forster and other cosmopolitan modern writers of racism even as he was critical of so many others. Of course, Said’s work is not racist by association, as most of his writing after Orientalism was directed toward the scrutiny and exposure of racism and colonialism, in canonical literary texts and especially in representations of the Arab and Muslim world.
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- Information
- Orientalism and Literature , pp. 235 - 252Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019