MACMILLAN Edward Said and the Question of Subjectivity

Edward Said and the Question of Subjectivity explores the notion of subjectivity implicated in and articulated by Said in his writings. Analyzing several of his major works, Pannian argues that there is a shift in Said's intellectual trajectory that takes place after the composition of Orientalism. In so doing, Said forthrightly attempts to retrieve a theoretical and political humanism, as Pannian identifies, despite the difficult and sanguinary aspects of its past. He elaborates upon Said's understanding that only after recognising the structures of violence and coming to discern strategies of interpellation, may the individual subject effectively resist them. Pannian also explores Said's ideas on exilic subjectivity, the role of intellectuals, acts of memory, critical secularism, affiliation and solidarity before dwelling on his interface with Marxist thinkers such as Antonio Gramsci, Theodor Adorno, and Raymond Williams. This engagement marks Said's own subject formation, and shapes his self-reflexive mode of knowledge production. Review "This comprehensive study does ample justice to Edward Said's critical thought, illuminating the profound importance that Said placed on criticism in the service of responsibility and dissent. Said's refusal of both identity politics and impersonal systems gets full treatment in this sympathetic yet critical study. The book will be a valuable resource for students of postcolonial studies." - Gauri Viswanathan, Class of 1933 Professor in the Humanities, Columbia University, USA "Prasad Pannian underlines the centrality of 'subjectivity' in Edward Said's activist secular humanism, formulated in response to postmodern and postcolonial deconstructions of identity, subjectivity, and agency. His novel readings of Said's major works are illuminated by his own commitment to overcoming differences that continue to undermine political agency. Highly recommended on both counts." - Arif Dirlik, Independent Scholar, USA   "A welcome addition to the growing body of scholarship on Edward Said and his legacy of non-humanist humanism, Prasad Pannian's book is an admirable endeavor to critically unpack the category of subjectivity in Said's work and account for its performance across uneven terrains and contradictory imperatives. In focusing on the relationship, in Said's critical agenda, between an exilic humanism and critical secularism, Pannian demonstrates how crucial it is for Said to reclaim, reform, and redeem humanism in the name of humanism." - Rajagopalan Radhakrishnan, Chancellor's Professor of English and Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, USA   "A learned and wide-ranging study of this major thinker, and a most invaluable addition to Saidian scholarship."  - Kenneth J. Surin, Professor of Literature, Religion and Critical Theory, Duke University, USA Review "No one has tabulated more thoroughly than Prasad Pannian the astounding variety of guises in which individual will and intention appeared across the whole scope of Said's thought, writing, activism, and self-representations. Pannian offers guidance to those who wonder just how Said reversed his initial advocacy and then summarily disposed of Barthes and Foucault - thinkers who led a generation to believe that the author and the human subject were no longer effective as categories of literary analysis." - H. Aram Veeser, Professor, City College of New York and Graduate Center, CUNY    "This comprehensive study does ample justice to Edward Said's critical thought, illuminating the profound importance that Said placed on criticism in the service of responsibility and dissent. Said's refusal of both identity politics and impersonal systems gets full treatment in this sympathetic yet critical study. The book will be a valuable resource for students of postcolonial studies." - Gauri Viswanathan, Class of 1933 Professor in the Humanities, Columbia University, USA "Prasad P