Ep 13: “Places of Mind:” The life, times, and literary mind of Edward Said

What do literary studies have to do with politics? How and why was Edward Said able to emphasize this connection, and revolutionize the way the West looked at the Middle East, and the way the Middle East looked back?

Dr. Husain is joined by guest co-host Dr. David Schmid, professor of English at the University at Buffalo, for this discussion on the life and work of famed scholar and activist, Edward Said. The University of Minnesota’s Dr. Timothy Brennan, who was a student, colleague, and friend of Said, speaks about the scholar and his new biography “Places of Mind: A Life of Edward Said.” The fascinating discussion covers not only his work, but also Said’s remarkable life, personality, and world view, and how all of those came together to shape his writing.

Get the book here: https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/places-of-mind-a-life/9780374714710-item.html

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374146535

Professor David Schmid is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York (SUNY). The recipient of the Milton Plesur Excellence in Teaching Award and the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, he teaches courses in British and American fiction, cultural studies, and popular culture. Dr. Schmid has published on a variety of subjects, including the nonfiction novel, celebrity, film adaptation, Dracula, and crime fiction.

Timothy Brennan works on the relationship between comparative literature, world literature, and global English. He is a member of both the departments of Cultural Studies & Comparative Literature, and English, and is a member of the graduate faculty of American Studies at the University of Minnesota.

As someone who studied under Edward Said and remained a friend until his death in 2003, Timothy Brennan had unprecedented access to his thesis adviser’s ideas and legacy. In this authoritative work, Said, the pioneer of postcolonial studies, a tireless champion for his native Palestine, and an erudite literary critic, emerges as a self-doubting, tender, eloquent advocate of literature’s dramatic effects on politics and civic life.

Charting the intertwined routes of Said’s intellectual development, Places of Mind reveals him as a study in opposites: a cajoler and strategist, a New York intellectual with a foot in Beirut, an orchestra impresario in Weimar and Ramallah, a raconteur on national television, a Palestinian negotiator at the State Department, and an actor in films in which he played himself. Brennan traces the Arab influences on Said’s thinking along with his tutelage under Lebanese statesmen, off-beat modernist auteurs, and New York literati, as Said grew into a scholar whose influential writings changed the face of university life forever. With both intimidating brilliance and charm, Said melded these resources into a groundbreaking and influential countertradition of radical humanism, set against the backdrop of techno-scientific dominance and religious war. With unparalleled clarity, Said gave the humanities a new authority in the age of Reaganism, one that continues today.

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