Writing in Place: Edward Said’s Constructions of Exile
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Susan Winnett
Abstract
This essay examines the notions of place and self-placement central to Ed-ward Said’s autobiographical memoir, Out of Place, and discusses their relation to the notion of exile that is so crucial to his intellectual legacy. In his theoretical writings, Said needs exile to be both literal and figurative: On the one hand, exile is the ultimate historical obscenity that cannot be made to stand for anything but itself. On the other hand, it is “a metaphorical condition” that characterizes the intellectual, such as him-self, whose homelessness allows him to do independent and courageous thinking. The implications of this double agenda are manifest in Said’s critical practice. A discussion of Said’s reading of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park illuminates his exilic investment in certain aspects of the culture to which he sees himself in opposition.
© 2014 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co.
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelei
- Inhalt
- Editorial
- Irreconcilabilities and Transgressions: Edward W. Said’s Idea of a Wordly Criticism – An Introduction
- The Literary Presence of Atlantic Colonialism as Notation and Counterpoint
- Writing in Place: Edward Said’s Constructions of Exile
- Out of Place: Extraterritorial Existence and Autobiography
- Humanistic Criticism, Prophetic Pragmatism, and the Question of Antifoundationalism – Remarks on Edward Said and Cornel West
- Orientalism, Globalism and the Possibility of Alternative Systems of Representation
- Transnational Cultures and Multiple Modernities: Anthropology’s Encounter with Globalization
- Die Autoren dieses Heftes
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelei
- Inhalt
- Editorial
- Irreconcilabilities and Transgressions: Edward W. Said’s Idea of a Wordly Criticism – An Introduction
- The Literary Presence of Atlantic Colonialism as Notation and Counterpoint
- Writing in Place: Edward Said’s Constructions of Exile
- Out of Place: Extraterritorial Existence and Autobiography
- Humanistic Criticism, Prophetic Pragmatism, and the Question of Antifoundationalism – Remarks on Edward Said and Cornel West
- Orientalism, Globalism and the Possibility of Alternative Systems of Representation
- Transnational Cultures and Multiple Modernities: Anthropology’s Encounter with Globalization
- Die Autoren dieses Heftes
