Humanism and Democratic Criticism [Hardcover]

Edward W Said (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1403947104 | ISBN-13: 978-1403947109 | Publication Date: September 14, 2004

In the radically changed and highly charged political atmosphere that has overtaken the United States -- and to varying degrees the rest of the world -- since September 11, 2001, the notion that cultures can harmoniously and productively coexist has come to seem like little more than a quaint fiction. In this time of heightened animosity and aggression, have humanistic values and democratic principles become irrelevant? Are they merely utopian fantasies? Or are they now more urgent and necessary than ever before?

Ever since the ascendancy of critical theory and multicultural studies in the 1960s and 1970s, traditional humanistic education has been under assault. Often condemned as the intolerant voice of the masculine establishment and regularly associated with Eurocentrism and even imperialism, the once-sacred literary canon is now more likely to be ridiculed than revered. While this seismic shift -- brought on by advances in technological communication, intellectual specialization, and cultural sensitivity -- has eroded the former primacy of the humanities, Edward Said argues that a more democratic form of humanism -- one that aims to incorporate, emancipate, and enlighten -- is still possible. A lifelong humanist, Said believed that self-knowledge is the highest form of human achievement and the true goal of humanistic education. But he also believed that self-knowledge is unattainable without an equal degree of self-criticism, or the awareness that comes from studying and experiencing other peoples, traditions, and ideas.

Proposing a return to philology and a more expansive literary canon as strategies for revitalizing the humanities, Said contends that words are not merely passive figures but vital agents in historical and political change. Intellectuals must reclaim an active role in public life, but at the same time, insularity and parochialism, as well as the academic trend toward needless jargon and obscurantism, must be combated. The "humanities crisis," according to Said, is based on the misperception that there is an inexorable conflict between established traditions and our increasingly complex and diversified world. Yet this position fails to recognize that the canonized thinkers of today were the revolutionaries of yesterday and that the nature of human progress is to question, upset, and reform. By considering the emerging social responsibilities of writers and intellectuals in an ever more interdependent world and exploring the enduring influence of Eric Auerbach's critical masterpiece, Mimesis, Said not only makes a persuasive case for humanistic education but provides his own captivating and deeply personal perspective on our shared intellectual heritage.

--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Said writes an impassioned apologia for a cosmopolitan, playful and rigorously inquisitive brand of humanist practice.

(Laura Ciolkowski New York Times Book Review Winter 2005)

Illuminating.... A poignant reminder that reasonableness and partisanship are not always the enemies that some leftists seem to think they are.

(Terry Eagleton The Nation Spring 2005)

The late Said here provides a powerful defense of humanistic disciplines and democratic ideals in global civilization.... Highly recommended.

(Library Journal Spring 2005)

[This] noble volume shows Said taking stock of the ideals and principles that sustained him as professor, activist, and critic.... [His] reasoned advocacy is a reminder why literature and criticism are equipment for living.

(Matthew Price Bookforum )

Said was the model of an engaged critic. His writings are marked out by a palpable vitality, an infectious curiosity in everything human and a set of particular concerns with exile, east and west, intellectual independence and truth telling.... These lectures, given in New York in 2000, are vintage Said. They begin with an argument for an expansive, unaligned and above all releveant version of literary criticism, aimed at tackling prejudice, exposing oppression and interrogating simplified ideas of identity.

(Ben Rogers Financial Times )

As the widely acknowledged father of post-colonial studies, Said has inspired a wave of interest in the study of cultural difference.

(Laura Ciolkowski International Herald Tribune )

If one can only read one of Said's twenty books, then I would recommend this one. In it, Said pulls together threads and metaphors from his different works -- literary, political, academic, activist, musical -- to weave a humanist landscape in a style that is between that of an academic speaking to peers and that of an activist addressing an audience. It combines passion with rigour -- the hallmark of Edward Said.

(Al-Ahram Weekly )

A distillation of what Said called his late style, informal, freely ruminative, personal, and tirelessly reexamining his thinking.

(W. J. T. Mitchell Critical Inquiry )

In his final book, Said leaves with head held high, penning his last testament as a fire-and-brimstone humanist.

(Len Edgerly Rain Taxi )

Said's book walks a tightrope, in other words, between the latest rages in academic criticism and the conservative reactions to them... Death will not silence his voice, and humanism of the sort he espoused will never die.

(W. J. T. Mitchell Journal of Palestine Studies ) --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

About the Author

Born in Jerusalem in 1935, Edward W. Said was one of the world's most celebrated, outspoken, and influential public intellectuals until his death on September 24, 2003. He is the author of more than twenty books that have been translated into thirty-six languages, including Beginnings (1975); The Question of Palestine (1979); the internationally acclaimed Orientalism (1979); Covering Islam (1980); The World, the Text, and the Critic (1983); After the Last Sky (1986); Musical Elaborations (1991); Culture and Imperialism (1993); Out of Place: A Memoir (1999); Reflections on Exile and Other Essays (2001); Power, Politics, and Culture (2001); and Freud and the Non-European (2003). He began teaching at Columbia University in 1963 and became University Professor of English and Comparative Literature there in 1992. He was a past president of the Modern Language Association and was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Royal Society of Literature, and the American Philosophical Society. Said was the recipient of numerous prizes and distinctions -- including twenty honorary doctorates -- and he was first U.S. citizen to receive the prestigious Sultan Owais Prize.

--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave MD (September 14, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1403947104
• ISBN-13: 978-1403947109
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,519,094 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An elegant last work, June 26, 2004

By 

Charlus "charlus" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Humanism and Democratic Criticism (Columbia Themes in Philosophy) (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:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful and nuanced, July 2, 2005

By 

Bukkene Bruse (Iowa) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Humanism and Democratic Criticism (Columbia Themes in Philosophy) (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.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Said's last offering to the World, May 18, 2007

By 

Drew Hunkins (Madison, WI United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Humanism and Democratic Criticism (Columbia Themes in Philosophy) (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.